Strawberry Hill, Wednesday night, [July 15, 1789.] (PAGE 425)

I write a few lines only to confirm the truth of much of what

you

will read in the papers from Paris. Worse may already be come,

or is expected every hour. Mr. Mackenzie and Lady Betty called

on me before dinner, after the post was gone out; and he showed

me a letter from Dutens, who said two couriers arrived

yesterday

from the Duke of Dorset and the Duchess of Devonshire, the

latter

of whom was leaving Paris directly. Necker had been dismissed,

and was thought to be set out for Geneva. Breteull, who was at

his country-house, had been sent for to succeed him. Paris was

in an uproar; and, after the couriers had left it, firing of

cannon was heard for four hours together. That must have been

from the Bastille,(650) as probably the tiers `etat were not so

provided. It is shocking to imagine what may have happened in

such a thronged city! One of the couriers was stopped twice or

thrice, as supposed to pass from the King; but redeemed himself

by pretending to be despatched by the tiers `etat. Madame de

Calonne told Dutens, that the newly encamped troops desert by

hundreds.

Here seems the egg to be hatched, and imagination runs away

with

the idea. I may fancy I shall hear of the King and Queen

leaving

Versailles, like Charles the First, and then skips imagination

six-and-forty years lower, and figures their fugitive majesties

taking refuge in this country. I have besides another idea.

If

the Bastille conquers, still it is impossible, considering the

general spirit in the country, and the numerous fortified

places

in France, but some may be seized by the dissidents, and whole

provinces be torn from the crown! On the other hand, if the

King

prevails, what heavy despotism will the `etats, by their want

of

temper and moderation, have drawn on their country! They might

have obtained many capital points, and removed great

oppression.

No French monarch will ever summon `etats again, if this moment

has been thrown away.

Though I have stocked myself with such a set of visions for the

event either way, I do not pretend to foresee what will happen.

Penetration argues from reasonable probabilities; but chance

and

folly are apt to contradict calculation, and hitherto they

seen)

to have full scope for action. One hears of no genius on

either

side, nor do symptoms of any appear. There will perhaps: such

times and tempests bring forth, at least bring out, great men.

I

do not take the Duke of Orleans or Mirabeau to be built du bois

dont on les fait; no, nor Monsieur Necker.(651) He may be a

great traitor, if he made the confusion designedly: but it is a

woful evasion, if the promised financier slips into a black

politician! I adore liberty, but I would bestow it as honestly

as

I could; and a civil war, besides being a game of chance, is

paying a very dear price for it.

For us, we are in most danger of a deluge; though I wonder we

so

frequently complain of long rains. The saying about St.

Swithin

is a proof of how often they recur; for proverbial sentences

are

the children of experience, not of prophecy. Good night! In a

few days I shall send you a beautiful little poem from the

Strawberry press.

(650) For an interesting account of the storming and

destruction

of the Bastille, on the 14th of July, see Mr. Shobert's

valuable

translation of M. Thiers's "History of the French Revolution,"

vol. i. p. 59.-E.

(651) "It was in vain," says Sir Walter Scott, "that the

Marquis

de Bouill`e pointed out the dangers arising from the

constitution

assigned to the States General, and insisted that the minister

was arming the Popular part of the nation against the two

privileged orders, and that the latter would soon experience

the

effects of their hatred, Necker calmly replied, that there was

a

necessary reliance to be placed on the virtues of the human

heart--the maxim of a worthy man, but not of an enlightened

statesman, who has but too much reason to know how often both

the

virtues and the prudence of human nature are surmounted by its

prejudices and Passions." Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, vol. i,

p,

107, ed. 1834.-E.

Letter 336 To Miss Hannah More.

Strawberry Hill, Monday night, July 20, 1789. (PAGE 427)

My excellent friend,

I never shall be angry with your conscientiousness, though I ) do

not promise never to scold it, as you know I think you sometimes

carry it too far; and how pleasant to have a friend to scold on

such grounds! I see all your delicacy in what you call your

double treachery, and your kind desire of connecting two of your

friends.(652) The seeds are sprung up already; and the Bishop

has already condescended to make me the first, and indeed so

unexpected a visit, that, had I in the least surmised it, I

should certainly, as became me, have prevented him. One effect,

however, I can tell you your pimping between us will have: his

lordship has, to please your partiality, flattered me so

agreeably in the letter you betrayed, that I shall never write to

you again without the dread of attempting the wit he is so

liberal as to bestow on me; and then either way I must be dull or

affected, though I hope to have the grace to prefer the former,

and then you only will be the sufferer, as we both should by the

latter. But I will come to facts -. they are plain bodies, can

have nothing to do with wit, and yet are not dull to those who

have any thing to do with them.

According to your order, I have delivered Ghosts(653) to Mrs.

Boscawen, Mrs. Garrick, Lady Juliana Penn, Mrs. Walsingham, and

Mr. Pepys. Mr. Batt, I am told, leaves London to-day; so I shall

reserve his to his return. This morning I carried his thirty to

the Bishop of London, who said modestly, he should not have

expected above ten. I was delighted with the palace, with the

Venerable chapel, and its painted episcopalities in glass, and

the brave hall, etc. etc. Though it rained, I would crawl to

Bonner's chair. In short, my satisfaction would have been

complete, but for wanting the presence of that jesuitess, "the

good old papist."

To-morrow departs for London, to be delivered to the Bristol

coach at the White-horse-cellar in Piccadilly, a parcel

containing sixty-four Ghosts, one of which is printed on brown

for your own eating. There is but one more such, so you may

preserve it like a relic. I know these two are not so good as

the white: but, as rarities, a collector would give ten times

more for them; and uniquity will make them valued more than the

charming poetry. I believe, if there was but one ugly woman in

the world, she would occasion a longer war than Helen did. You

will find the Bishop's letter in the parcel. I did not breathe a

hint of my having seen it, as I could not conjure up Into my pale

cheeks the blush I ought to exhibit on such flattery.

I pity you most sincerely for your almost drowned guest. Fortune

seems to delight in throwing poor Louisas in Your Way, that you

may exercise your unbounded charity and benevolence. Adieu!

pray write. I need not write to you to pray; but I wish, when

your knees have what the common people call a worky-day, you

would employ your hands the whole time. Yours most cordially.

P. S. I believe I have blundered, and that your knees would call

a week-day a holiday.

(652) With the view of making Bishop Porteus and Walpole better

known to each other, Miss More had committed what she called a

double treachery, in showing to the Bishop a letter she had

received from Walpole, and to Walpole one sent her by the

Bishop.-E.

(653) Though the author of this poem must have been known to so

many individuals in the year 1789, the secret was so well kept,

that it was actually printed in the, Gentleman's Magazine for

February, 1804, as the production of Walpole.-E.

Letter 337 To Miss Berry.

Strawberry Hill, July 29, 1789. (PAGE 428)

I have received two dear letters from you of the 18th and 25th

and though you do not accuse me, but say a thousand kind things

to me in the most agreeable manner, I allow my ancientry, and

that I am an old, jealous, and peevish husband, and quarrel with

you if I do not receive a letter exactly at the moment I please

to expect one. You talk of mine; but, if you knew how I like

Yours, you would not wonder that I am impatient, and even

unreasonable in my demands. However, though I own my faults, I

do not mean to correct them. I have such pleasure in your

letters (I am sorry I am here forced to speak in the singular

number,'which by the way is an Irishism,) that I will be cross if

you do not write to me perpetually. The quintessence of your

last but one was, in telling me you are better - how fervently do

I wish to receive such accounts every post. But who can mend but

old I, in such detestable weather?--not one hot day; and, if a

morning shines, the evening closes with a heavy shower.

Of French news I can give you no fresher or more authentic

account, than you can collect in general from the newspapers; but

my present visitants and every body else confirm the veracity of

Paris being in that anarchy that speaks the populace domineering

in the most cruel and savage manner, and which a servile

multitude broken loose calls liberty; and which in all

probability will end, when their Massaniello-like reign is over,

in their being more abject slaves than ever, and chiefly by the

crime of their `Etats, who, had they acted with temper and

prudence, might have obtained from their poor and undesigning

King a good and permanent constitution. Who may prove their

tyrant, if reviving loyalty does not in a new frenzy force him to

be so, it is impossible to foresee; but much may happen first.

The rage seems to gain the provinces, and threatens to exhibit

the horrors of those times when the peasants massacred the

gentlemen. Thus you see I can only conjecture, which is not

sending you news; and my intelligence reaches me by so many

rebounds, that you must not depend on any thing I can tell you.

I repeat, because I hear; but draw on you for no credit. Having

experienced last winter, in suporaddition to a long life of

experience, that in Berkeley Square I could not trust to a single

report from Kew, can I swallow implicitly at Twickenham the

distorted information that comes from Paris through the medium of

London?

You asked me in one of your letters who La Chalotais was. I

answer, premier pr`esident or avocat-g`en`eral, I forget which,

of the Parliament of Bretagne; a great, able, honest, and most

virtuous man, who opposed the Jesuits and the tyranny of the Duc

d'Aiguillon; but he was as indiscreet as he was good. Calonne

was his friend and confident; to whom the imprudent patriot

trusted, by letter, his farther plan of opposition and designs.

The wretch pretended to have business with, or to be sent for by,

the Duc de la Vrilli`ere, secretary of state; a courtier-wretch,

whose mistress used to sell lettres do cachet for a louis.(654)

Calonne was left to wait in the antechamber; but being, as he

said, suddenly called in to the minister, as he was reading (a

most natural soil for such a lecture) the letter of his friend,

he by a second natural inadvertence left the fatal letter on the

chimney-piece. The consequence, much more natural, was, that La

Chalotais was committed to the Ch`ateau du Taureau, a horrible

dungeon on a rock in the sea, with his son, whose legs mortified

there, and the father was doomed to the scaffold; but the Duc de

Choiseul sent a counter reprieve by an express and a cross-road,

and saved him.(655) At the beginning of this reign he was

restored. Paris, however, was so

indignant at the treachery, that this Calonne was hissed out of

the theatre, when I was in that capital.(656) When I heard, some

years after, that a Calonne was made controlleur-g`en`eral, I

concluded that it must be a son, not conceiving that so

reprobated a character could emerge to such a height; but asking

my sister, 'who has been in France since I was, she assured me it

was not only the identical being, but that when she was at Metz,

where I think he was intendant, the officers in garrison would

not dine with him. When he fled hither for an asylum, I did not

talk of his story till I saw it in one of the pamphlets that were

written against him in France, and that came over hither.

Friday night, 31st.

My company prevented my finishing this: part left me at noon, the

residue are to come to-morrow. To-day I have dined at

Fulham(657) along with Mrs. Boscawen but St. Swithin played the

devil so, that we could not stir out of doors, and had fires to

chase the watery Spirits. Quin, being once asked if ever he had

seen so bad a winter, replied, "Yes, just such an one last

summer!"--and here is its youngest brother!

Mrs. Boscawen saw a letter from Paris to Miss Sayer this morning,

Which says Necker's son-in-law was arrived, and had announced his

father-in- law's promise of return from Basle. I do not know

whether his honour or ambition prompt this compliance; Surely not

his discretion. I am much acquainted with him, and do not hold

him great and profound enough to quell the present anarchy. if

he attempts to moderate for the King, I Shall not be surprised if

he falls another victim to tumultuary jealousy and outrage.(658)

All accounts agree in the violence of the mob against the

inoffensive as well as against the objects of their resentment;

and in the provinces, where even women are not safe in their

houses. The hotel of the Duc de Chatelet, lately built and

superb, has been assaulted, and the furniture sold by

auction;(659) but a most shocking act of a royalist in Burgundy

who is said to have blown up a committee of forty persons, will

probably spread the flames of civil rage much wider. When I read

the account I did not believe it; but the Bishop of London says,

he hears the `Etats have required the King to write to every

foreign power not to harbour the execrable author, who is

fled.(660) i fear this conflagration will not end as rapidly as

that in Holland!

(654) The Duc de la Vrillibre was dismissed in 1775, and

succeeded by M. de Malesherbes, Madame du Deffand's letter to

Walpole of June 26, 1774, contains the following epigram on

him:--

"Ministre sans talent ainsi que sans vertu,

Couvert d'ignominie autant qu'on le peut `etre,

Retire-toi donc! Qu'attends-tu?

Qu'on te jette par la fen`etre?"-E.

(655) La Chalotais died in July 1785. Among other works he wrote

an "Essay On National Education," which was reprinted in 1825.

His son perished by the guillotine in January 1794.-E.

(656) "An intrigue brought M. de Calonne forward, who was not in

good odour with the public, because he had contributed to the

persecution Of La chatolais." Thiers, vol. i. p. 5.-E.

(657) With Bishop Porteus. "I fear," writes Hannah More, on

hearing of this dinner, "I shall secretly triumph in the success

of my fraud, if it has contributed to bring about any intercourse

between the Abbey of Fulham and the Castle of Otranto, it sounds

so ancient and so feudal! But among the things which pleased you

in the episcopal domain, I hope the lady of it has that good

fortune; she is quite a model of a pleasant wife. Now, I am

acquainted with a great many very good wives, who are so notable

and so manageable, that they make a man every thing but happy;

and I know a great many other;, who sing, play and paint, and cut

paper, and are so accomplished, that they have no time to be

agreeable, and no desire to be useful," Memoirs, vol.'Ii. p.

165.-E.

(658) On the 16th of July, five days after the dismissal of M.

Necker, the National Assembly obtained his recall. His return

from Basle to Paris was one continued triumph. During the next

twelve months, he was constantly presenting new financial

statements; but he soon perceived that his influence was daily

diminishing: at length the famous Red Book appeared, and

completely put an end to his popularity. In September 1790, his

resignation was accepted: as he was quitting the kingdom, his

carriage was stopped by the same populace which had so recently

drawn him into Paris in triumph; and it was necessary to apply to

the Assembly for an order, directing that he should be allowed to

proceed to Switzerland. He obtained this permission, and retired

to Coppet, "there," says M. Thiers, "to contemplate at a

distance, a revolution which he was no longer qualified to

observe Closely Or to guide."-E.

(659) The Duke, who was colonel of the King's guard, narrowly

escaped assassination.-E.

(660) After an inquiry, instituted by the National Assembly, the

whole was found to be a villanous fabrication.-E.

Letter 338 To John Pinkerton, Esq.(661)

Strawberry Hill, July 31, 1789. (PAGE 431)

Having had my house full of relations till this evening, I could

not answer the favour of your letter Sooner; and now I am ashamed

of not being able to tell you that I have finished reading your

"Essay on the Ancient History of Scotland." I am so totally

unversed in the story of original nations, and I own always find

myself so little interested in savage manners unassisted by

individual characters, that, though you lead me with a firmer

hand than any historian through the dark tracts, the clouds rose

round me the moment I have passed them, and I retain no memory of

the ground I have trod. I greatly admire your penetration, and

read with wonder your clear discovery of the kingdom of

Strathclyde; but, though I bow to you, as I would to the founder

of an empire, I confess I do not care a straw about your

subjects, with whom I am no more acquainted than with the ancient

inhabitants of Otaheite. Your origin of the Piks is most able;

but then I cannot remember them with any precise discrimination

from any other hyperborean nation; and all the barbarous names at

the end of the first volume, and the gibberish in the Appendix,

was to me as unintelligible as if Repeated Abracadabra; and made

no impression on me but to raise respect of your patience, and

admire a sagacity that could extract meaning and suite from what

seemed to me the most indigestible of all materials. You rise in

my estimation in Proportion to the disagreeable mass of your

ingredients. What gave me pleasure that I felt, was the

exquisite sense and wit of your Introduction; and your masterly

handling and confutation of the Macphersons, Whitaker, etc.

there and through your work. Objection I have but one, I think

you make yourself too much a party against the Colts. I do not

think they were or are worthy of hatred.

Upon the whole, dear Sir, you see that your work is too learned

and too deep for my capacity and shallow knowledge. I have told

you that my reading and knowledge is and always was trifling and

superficial, and never taken up or pursued but for present

amusement. I always was incapable of dry and unentertaining

studies; and of all studies the origin of nations never was to my

taste. Old age and frequent disorders have dulled both my

curiosity and attention, as well as weakened my memory; and I

cannot fix my attention to long deductions. I say to myself,

"What is knowledge to me who stand on the verge, and must leave

any old stores as well as what I may add to them; and how little

could that be?"

Having thus confessed the truth, I am sure you are too candid and

liberal to be offended - you cannot doubt of my high respect for

your extraordinary abilities I am even proud of having discovered

them of myself without any clue. I should be very insincere, if

I pretended to have gone through with eagerness your last work,

which demands more intense attention than my age, eyes, and

avocations will allow. I cannot read long together; and you are

sensible that your work is not a book to be`rea'd' by snatches

and intervals; especially as the novelty, to me at least,

requires some helps to connect it with the memory.

(661) Now first collected.

Letter 339 To Miss Hannah More.(662)

Strawberry Hill, August 9, 1789. (PAGE 432)

You are not very corresponding, (though better of late,) and

therefore I will not load the conscience of your fingers much,

lest you should not answer me in three months. I am happy that

you are content with my edition of your Ghost, and with the brown

copy. Every body is charmed with your poem: I have not heard one

breath but of applause. In confirmation, I enclose a note to me

from the Duchess of Gloucester, who certainly never before wished

to be an authoress. You may lay it up in the archives of

Cowslip-green, and carry it along with your other testimonials to

Parnassus.(663) Mr. Carter, to whom I sent a copy, is delighted

with it. The Bishop, with whom I dined last week, is extremely

for your printing an edition for yourself, and desired I would

press you to it. Mind, I do press you: and could Bonner's Ghost

be laid again,-which is ,impossible, for it will walk for ever,

and by day too,--we would have it laid in the Red Sea by some

West India merchant, who must be afraid of spirits, and cannot be

in charity with you. Mrs. Boscawen dined at Fulham with me. It

rained all day; and, though the last of July, we had fires in

every room, as if Bonner had been still in possession of the see.

I have not dared to recollect you too often by overt acts, dear

Madam; as, by the slowness of your answer, you seem to be sorry

my memory was so very alert. Besides, it looks as if you had a

mind to keep me at due distance, by the great civility and cold

complimentality of your letter; a style I flattered myself you

had too much good will towards me to use. Pretensions to

humility I know are generally traps to flattery; but, could you

know how very low my opinion is of myself, I am sure you would

not have used the terms to me you did, and which I will not

repeat, as they are by no means applicable to me. If I ever had

tinsel parts, age has not only tarnished them, but convinced me

how frippery they were.

Sweet are your Cowslips, sour my Strawberry Hill;

My fruits are fallen, your blossoms flourish still.

Mrs. Boscawen told me last night, that she had received a long

letter from you, which makes me flatter myself you have no return

of your nervous complaints. Mrs. Walsingham I have seen four or

five times - Miss Boyle has decorated their house most

charmingly; she has not only designed, but carved in marble,

three beautiful base reliefs, with boys, for a chimney-piece;

besides painting elegant panels for the library, and forming, I

do not know how, pilasters of black and gold beneath glass; in

short, we are so improved in taste, that, if it would be decent,

I could like to live fifty or sixty years more, just to see how

matters go on. In the mean time, I wish my Macbethian wizardess

would tell me "that Cowslip Dale should come to Strawberry Hill;"

which by the etiquette of oracles, you know, would certainly

happen, because so improbable. I will be content if the nymph of

the dale will visit the old man of the mountain, and her most

sincere friend.

(662) Now first collected.

(663) In reply to this, Miss More says, "You not only do all you

can to turn my head by printing my trumpery verses yourself. but

you call in royal aid to complete my delirium. I comfort myself

you will counteract some part of the injury you have done, my

principles this summer, by a regular course of abuse when we meet

in the winter: remember that you owe this to my moral health;

next to being flattered I like to be scolded; but to be let

quietly alone would be intolerable. Dr. Johnson once said to me,

'I Never mind whether they praise or abuse your writings; any

thing is tolerable except oblivion.'" Memoirs, vol. ii. P.

169.-E.

Letter 340 To John Pinkerton, Esq.(664)

Strawberry Hill, Aug. 14, 1789. (PAGE 433)

I must certainly have expressed myself very awkwardly, dear Sir,

if you conceive I meant the slightest censure on your book, much

less on your manner of treating it; which is as able, and clear,

and demonstrative as possible. No; it was myself, my age, my

want of apprehension and memory, and my total ignorance of the

subject, which I intended to blame. I never did taste or study

the very ancient histories of nations. I never had a good memory

for names of persons, regions, places, which no specific

circumstances concurred to make me remember; and now, at

seventy-two, when, as is common, I forget numbers of names most

familiar to me, is it possible I should read with pleasure any

work that consists of a vocabulary so totally new to me? Many

years ago, when my faculties were much less impaired, I was

forced to quit Dow's History of Indostan, because the Indian

names made so little impression on me, that I went backward

instead of forward, and was every minute reverting to the former

page to find about whom I was reading. Your book was a still

more laborious work to me; for it contains such a series of

argumentation that it demanded a double effort from a weak old

head; and, when I had made myself master of a deduction, I forgot

it the next day, and had my pains to renew. These defects have

for some time been so obvious to me, that I never read now but

the most trifling books; having often said that, at the very end

of life, it is useless to be improving one's stock of knowledge,

great or small, for the next world. Thus, Sir, all I have said

in my last letter or in this, is an encomium on your work, not a

censure or criticism. It -would be hard on you, indeed, if my

incapacity detracted from your merit.

Your arguments in defence of works of science and deep

disquisition are most just; and I am sure I have neither power

nor disposition to answer them. You have treated your matter as

it ought to be treated. Profound men or conversant on the

subject, like Mr. Dempster, will be pleased with it, for the very

reasons that made it difficult to me. If Sir Isaac Newton had

written a fairy tale, I should have swallowed it eagerly; but do

you imagine, Sir, that, idle as I am, I am, idiot enough to think

that Sir Isaac had better have amused me for half an hour, than

enlightened mankind and all ages? I was so fair as to confess to

you that your work was above me, and did not divert me: you was

too candid to take that ill, and must have been content with

silently thinking me very silly; and I am too candid to condemn

any man for thinking of me as I deserve. I am only sorry when I

do deserve a disadvantageous character.

Nay, Sir, you condescend, after all, to ask My opinion of the

best way of treating antiquities; and, by the context, I suppose

you mean, how to make them entertaining. I cannot answer you in

one word -, because there are two ways, as there are two sorts of

readers. I should therefore say, to please antiquaries of

judgment, as you have treated them, with arguments and proofs;

but, if you would adapt antiquities to the taste of those who

read only to be diverted, not to be instructed, the nostrum is

very easy and short. You must divert them in the true sense of

the word diverto; you must turn them out of the way, you must

treat them with digressions nothing or very little to the

purpose. But, easy as I call this recipe, you, I believe, would

find it more difficult to execute, than the indefatigable

industry you have employed to penetrate chaos and extract the

truth. There have been professors who have engaged to adapt all

kinds of knowledge to the meanest capacities. I doubt their

success, at least on me: however, you need not despair; all

readers are not as dull and superannuated as, dear Sir, yours,

etc.

(664) Now first collected.

Letter 341 To John Pinkerton, Esq,(665)

Strawberry Hill, August 19, 1789. (PAGE 434)

I will not use many words, but enough, I hope, to convince you

that I meant no irony in my last. All I said of you and myself

was very sincere- It is my true opinion that your understanding

is one of the strongest, most manly, and clearest I ever knew;

and, as I hold my own to be of a very inferior kind and know it

to be incapable of sound, deep application, I should have been

very foolish if I had attempted to sneer at you or your pursuits.

Mine have always been light and trifling, and tended to nothing

but my casual amusement; I will not say, without a little vain

ambition of showing some parts but never with industry sufficient

to make me apply to any thing solid. My studies, if they could

be called so, and my productions, were alike desultory. In my

latter days I discovered the utility both of my objects and

writings: I felt how insignificant is the reputation of an author

of mediocrity; and that, being no genius, I only added one name

more to a list of writers that had told the world nothing but

what it could as well be without.

These reflections were the best proofs of my sense: and, when I

could see through my own vanity, there is less wonder at my

discovering that such talents as I might have had, are impaired

at Seventy-two. Being just to myself, I am not such a coxcomb as

to be unjust to you. No, nor did I cover any irony towards you,

in the opinion I gave you of making deep writings palatable to

the mass of readers. Examine my words; and I am sure you will

find that, if there was any thing ironic in my meaning, it was

levelled at your readers, not at you. it is my opinion, that

whoever wishes to be read by many, if his subject is weighty and

solid, must treat the majority with more than is to his purpose.

Do not you believe that twenty name Lucretius because of the

poetic commencement of his books, for five that wade through his

philosophy?

I promised to say but little; and, if I have explained myself

clearly, I have said enough. It is not, I hope, my character to

be a flatterer: I do most sincerely think you capable of great

things; and I should be a pitiful knave if I told you SO, unless

it was my opinion; and what end could it serve to me? Your course

is but beginning; mine is almost terminated. I do not want you

to throw a few daisies on my grave; and if you make the figure I

augur you will, I shall not be a witness to it. Adieu, dear Sir!

(665) NOW first collected.

Letter 342 To Richard Gough, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, August 24, 1789. (PAGE 435)

I shall heartily lament with you, Sir, the demolition of those

beautiful chapels at Salisbury. I was scandalized long ago at

the ruinous state in which they were indecently suffered to

remain. It appears as strange, that, when a spirit of

restoration and decoration has taken place, it should be mixed

with barbarous innovation. As much as taste has improved, I do

not believe that modern execution will equal our models. I am

sorry that I can only regret, not prevent. I do not know the

Bishop of Salisbury(666) even by Sight, and certainly have no

credit to obstruct any of his plans. should I get sight of Mr.

Wyatt, which is not easy to do, I will remonstrate against the

intended alteration; but probably without success, as I do not

suppose he has authority enough to interpose effectually: still I

will try. It is an old complaint with me, Sir, that when

families are extinct, chapters take the freedom of removing

ancient monuments, and even of selling, over again the sites of

such tombs. A scandalous, nay, dishonest abuse, and very

unbecoming clergy! Is it creditable for divines to traffic for

consecrated ground, and which the church had already sold? I do

not wonder that magnificent monuments are out of fashion, when

they are treated so disrespectfully. You, Sir, alone have placed

several out of the reach of such a kind of simoniacal abuse; for

to buy into the church, or to sell the church's land twice over,

breathes a similar kind of spirit. Perhaps, as the subscription

indicates taste, if some of the subscribers could be persuaded to

object to the removal of the two beautiful chapels, as contrary

to their view of beautifying, it might have good effect; or, if

some letter were published in the papers against the destruction,

as barbarous and the result of bad taste, it might divert the

design. I zealously wish it were stopped, but I know none of the

chapter or subscribers.(667)

(666) Dr. Shute Barrington; in 1791, translated to the see of

Durham.-E.

(667) Much discussion on the subject of the injury done to

Salisbury cathedral, here complained of by Walpole, took place in

the Gentleman's Magazine for this and the following year. "This

good," says the writer of a learned article on Cathedral

Antiquities, in the Quarterly Review for 1825, "has arisen from

the injury which was done at Salisbury, that in subsequent

undertakings of the same kind, the architect has come to his work

with Greater respect for the structures upon which he was

employed, and a mind more embued with the principles of Gothic

architecture."-E.

Letter 343 To The Miss Berrys.

Strawberry Hill, Thursday evening, Aug. 27, 1789. (PAGE 436)

I jumped for joy,-that is, my heart did, which is all the remain

of me that is in statu iumpante,-at the receipt of your letter

this morning, which tells me you approve of the house at

Teddington. How kind you was to answer so incontinently! I

believe you borrowed the best steed from the races. I have sent

to the landlord to come tomorrow: but I could not resist

beginning my letter to-night, as I am at home alone, with a

little pain in my left wrist; but the right one has no brotherly

feeling for it, and would not be put off so. You ask how you

have deserved such attentions? Why, by deserving them; by every

kind of merit, -and by that superlative one to me, your

submitting to throw away so much time on a forlorn antique--you

two, who, without specifying particulars, (and you must at least

be conscious that you are not two frights,) might expect any

fortune and distinctions, and do delight all companies. On which

side lies the Wonder? Ask me no more such questions, or I will

cram you with reasons.

My poor dear niece(668) grows worse and worse: the medical people

do not pretend to give us any hopes; they only say she may last

some weeks, which I do not expect, nor do absent myself. I had

promised Mr. Barrett to make a visit to my Gothic child, his

house, on Sunday; but I have written to-day to excuse myself: so

I have to the Duchess of Richmond,(669) who wanted me to meet her

mother, sister,(670) and General Conway, at Goodwood next week.

I wish Lady Fitzwilliam may not hear the same bad news as I

expect, in the midst of her royal visitors: her sister, the

Duchess of St. Albans, is dying, in the same way as Lady, Dysart;

and for some days has not been in her senses. How charming you

are to leave those festivities for your good parents; who I do

not wonder are impatient for you. I, who am old enough to be

your great-grandmother, know one needs not be your near relation

to long for your return. Of all your tour, next to your duteous

visits, I most approve the jaunt to the sea - I believe in its

salutary air more than in the whole college and all its works.

You must not expect any news from me, French or homebred. I am

not in the way of hearing any: your morning gazetteer rarely

calls on me, as I am not likely to pay him in kind. About royal

progresses, paternal or filial, I never inquire; nor do you, I

believe, care more than I do. The small wares in which the

societies at Richmond and Hampton-court deal, are still less to

our taste. My poor niece and her sisters take up most of my time

and thoughts: but I will not attrist you to indulge myself, but

will break off here, and finish my letter when I have seen your

new landlord. Good night!

Friday.

Well! I have seen him, and nobody was ever so accommodating! He

is as courteous as a candidate for a county. You may stay in his

house till Christmas if you please, and shall pay but twenty

pounds; and if more furniture is wanting, it shall be supplied.

(668) The Countess of Dysart.-M.B.

(669) Lady Mary Bruce, daughter of the Earl of Ailesbury by

Caroline Campbell, daughter of General John Campbell, afterwards

Duke of Argyle.-M.B.

(670) Mrs. Damer, only child of the Dowager Countess of

Ailesbury, by Marshal Henry Seymour Conway, her second husband.

She was thus half-sister to the Duchess of Richmond.-M.B.

Letter 344 To The Miss Berrys.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 4, 1789. (PAGE 437)

You ask whether I will call you wise or stupid for leaving, York

races in the middle-neither; had you chosen to stay, you would

have done rightly. The more young persons see, where there is

nothing blamable, the better; as increasing the stock of ideas

early will be a resource for age. To resign pleasure to please

tender relations is amiable, and superior to wisdom; for wisdom,

however laudable, is but a selfish virtue. But I do decide

peremptorily, that it was very prudent to decline the invitation

to Wentworth House,(671) which was obligingly given; but, as I am

very proud for you, I should have disliked your being included in

a mobbish kind of colhue. You two are not to go where any other

two misses would have been equally pri`ees, and where people

would have been thinking of the princes more than of the Berrys.

Besides, princes are so rife now, that, besides my sweet

nephew(672) in the Park, we have another at Richmond: the Duke

of Clarence has taken Mr. Henry Hobart's house, pointblank over

against Mr. Cambridge's, which will make the good woman of that

mansion cross herself piteously, and stretch the throat of the

blatant beast at Sudbrook(673) and of all the other pious matrons

`a la ronde; for his Royal Highness, to divert lonesomeness, has

brought with him - -, who, being still more averse to solitude,

declares that any tempter would make even Paradise more agreeable

than a constant t`ete-`a-t`ete.

I agree with you in not thinking Beatrice one of Miss Farren's

capital parts. Mrs. Pritchard played it with more spirit, and

was superior to Garrick's Benedict; so is Kemble, too, as he Is

to Quin in Maskwell. Kemble and Lysons the clergyman(674) passed

all Wednesday here with me. The former is melting the three

parts of Henry the Sixth into one piece: I doubt it will be

difficult to make a tolerable play out of them.

I have talked scandal from Richmond, like its gossips; and now,

by your queries after Lady Luxborough, you are drawing me into

more, which I do not love: but she is dead and forgotten, except

on the shelves of an old library, or on those of my old memory;

which you will be routing into. The lady you wot of, then, was

the first wife of Lord Catherlogh, before he was an earl; and who

was son of Knight, the South Sea cashier, and whose second wife

lives here at Twickenham. Lady Luxborough, a high-coloured lusty

black woman, was parted from her husband, upon a gallantry she

had with Dalton, the reviver of Comus and a divine. She retired

into the country; corresponded, as you see by her letters, with

the small poets of that time; but, having no Theseus amongst

them, consoled herself, as it is said, like Ariadne, with

Bacchus.(675) This might be a fable, like that of her Cretan

Highness--no matter; the fry of little anecdotes are so numerous

now, that throwing one more into the shoal is of no consequence,

if it entertains you for a Moment; nor need you believe what I

don't warrant.

Gramercy for your intention of seeing Wentworth Castle. it is my

favourite of all great seats;-such a variety of ground, of wood,

and water; and almost all executed and disposed with so much

taste by the present Earl. Mr. Gilpin sillily could See nothing

but faults there. The new front is, in my opinion, one of the

lightest and most beautiful buildings on earth - and, pray like

the little Gothic edifice, and its position in the menagerie! I

recommended it, and had it drawn by Mr. Bentley, from Chichester

Cross. Don't bring me a pair of scissors from Sheffield - I am

determined nothing shall cut our loves, though I should live out

the rest of Methusalem's term, as you kindly wish, and as I can

believe, though you are my wives; for I am persuaded my Agnes

wishes so too. Don't you?

At night.

I am just come from Cambridge's, where I have not been in an

evening, time out of mind. Major Dixon, alias "the Charming

man,"(676) is there; but I heard nothing of the Emperor's

rickets:(677) a great deal, and many horrid stories, of the

violences in France; for his brother, the Chevalier Jerningham,

is Just arrived from Paris. You have heard of the destruction of

thirty-two chateaus in Burgundy, at the instigation of a demon,

who has since been broken on the racks. There is now assembled

near Paris a body of sixteen thousand deserters, daily

increasing; who, they fear, will encamp and dictate to the

capital, in spite of their militia of twenty thousand bourgeois.

It will soon, I suppose, ripen to several armies, and a civil

war; a fine acheminement to liberty!

My poor niece is still alive, though weaker every day, and

pronounced irrecoverable: yet it is possible she may live some

weeks; which, however, is neither to be expected nor wished, for

she eats little and sleeps less. Still she is calm, and behaves

with the patience of a martyr.

You may perceive, by the former part of my letter, that I have

been dipping into Spenser again, though he is no passion of mine

- there I lighted upon two lines that, at first sight, reminded

me of Mademoiselle d'Eon,

"Now, when Marfisa had put off her beaver,

To be a woman every one perceive her!"

but I do not think that is so perceptible in the Chevali`ere.

She looked more feminine, as I remember her, in regimentals, than

she does now. She is at best a heri-dragoon, or an Herculean

hostess. I wonder she does not make a campaign in her own

country, and offer her sword to the almost dethroned monarch, as

a second Joan of Arc.(678) Adieu! for three weeks I shall say,

Sancte Michael, ora pro nobis! You seem to have relinquished your

plan of sea-coasting. I shall be sorry for that; it would do you

good.

(671) The Prince of Wales and the Duke of York were going to

receive a great entertainment at Wentworth House.-M.B.

(672) The Duke of Gloucester.

(673) Lady Greenwich.

(674) The " little Daniel" of the Pursuits of Literature, brother

of Samuel Lysons, the learned antiquary, and author of "The

Environs, twelve miles round London," in four volumes quarto--

"Nay once, for Purer air o'er rural ground,

With little Daniel went his twelve miles round."-E.

(675) Lady Luxborough died in 1756. Her letters to Shenstone

were published in 1775. In the first leaf of the original

manuscript there is an autograph of the poet, describing them as

being "written with abundant ease politeness, and vivacity; in

which she was scarce equalled by any woman of her time." Some of

her verses are printed in Dodsley's Miscellany, and Walpole has

introduced her ladyship into his Noble Authors.-E.

(676) Edward Jerningham, Esq. Of Cossey, in Norfolk, uncle to

the present Lord Stafford. He was distinguished in his day by

the name of Jerningham the poet; but it was an unpoetical day.

The stars of Byron, of Baillie, and of Scott, had not risen On

the horizon. The well merited distinction of Jerningham was the

friendship, affection, and intimacy which his amiable character

had impressed on the author, and on all of his society mentioned

in these letters.-M.B.

(677) This alludes to something said in a character which

Jerningham had assumed, for the amusement of a society some time

before at Marshal Conway's.-M.B.

(678) Miss More gives the following account of this extraordinary

character:--"On Friday I gratified the curiosity of many years,

by meeting at dinner Madame la Chevali`ere D'Eon - she is

extremely entertaining, has universal information, wit, vivacity,

and gaiety. Something too much of the latter (I have heard) when

she has taken a bottle or two of Burgundy; but this being a very

sober party, she was kept entirely within the limits of decorum.

General Johnson was of the party, and it was ridiculous to hear

her military conversation. Sometimes it Was, 'Quand j'`etais

colonel d'un tel regiment;' then again, 'Non, c'Rait quand

j'`etais secr`etaire d'ambassade du Duc de Nivernois,' or, 'Quand

je n`egociais la paix de Paris.' She is, to be sure, a phenomenon

in history; and, as such, a great curiosity. But one D'Eon is

enough, and one slice of her quite sufficient." Memoirs, vol. ii.

p. 156.-E.

Letter 345 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 5, 1789. (PAGE 440)

You speak so unperemptorily of your motions, that I must direct

to you at random: the most probable place where to hit you, I

think, will be Goodwood; and I do address this thither, because I

am impatient to thank you for your tale, which is very pretty and

easy and genteel. It has made me make a reflection, and that

reflection made six lines; which I send you, not as good, but as

expressing my thoughts on your writing so well in various ways

which you never practised when you was much younger. Here they

are:

The Muse most wont to fire a youthful heart,

To gild your setting sun reserved her art;

To crown a life in virtuous labours pass'd,

Bestow'd her numbers and her wit at last;

And, when your strength and eloquence retire,

Your voice in notes harmonious shall expire.

The swan was too common a thought to be directly specified, and,

perhaps, even to be alluded to: no matter, such a trifle is below

criticism.

I am still here, in no uncertainty, God knows, about poor Lady

Dysart (679) of whom there are not the smallest hopes. She grows

weaker every day, and does actually still go out for the air, and

may languish many days, though most probably will go off in a

moment, As the water rises. She retains her senses perfectly,

and as perfectly her unalterable calmness and patience, though

fully sensible of her situation. At your return from Goodwood, I

shall like to come to you, if you are unengaged, and ready to

receive me. For the beauties of Park-place, I am too well

acquainted with them, not, like all old persons about their

contemporaries, to think it preserves them long after they are

faded; and am so unwalking, that prospects are more agreeable to

me when framed and glazed, and I look at them through a window.

It is yourselves I want to visit, not your verdure. Indeed,

except a parenthesis of scarce all August, there has been no

temptation to walk abroad; and the tempter himself would not have

persuaded me, if I could, to have climbed that long-lost mountain

whence he could show one even the Antipodes. It rained

incessantly all June and all July; and now again we have torrents

every day.

Jerningham's brother, the Chevalier, is arrived from Paris, and

does not diminish the horrors one hears every day. They are now

in the capital dreading the sixteen thousand deserters who hover

about them. I conclude that when in the character of banditti

the whole disbanded army have plundered and destroyed what they

can, they will congregate into separate armies under different

leaders, who will hang Out different principles, and the kingdom

will be a theatre of civil wars; and, instead of liberty, the

nation will get petty tyrants, perhaps petty kingdoms: and when

millions have suffered, or been sacrificed, the government will

be no better than it was, all owing to the intemperance of the

`etats, who might have obtained a good constitution, or at least

one much meliorated, if they had set out with discretion and

moderation. They have left too a sad lesson to despotic princes,

who will quote this precedent of frantic `etats, against

assembling any more, and against all the examples of senates and

parliaments that have preserved rational freedom. Let me know

when it will be convenient to you to receive me. Adieu!

(679) Her ladyship, who was the daughter of Sir Edward Walpole

and the first wife of Lionel, fourth Earl of Dysart, died on the

day this letter was written.-E.

Letter 346 To Miss Hannah More.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. -, 1789. (PAGE 441)

I know whence you wrote last, but not where you are now; you gave

me no hint. I believe you fly lest I should pursue, and as if

you were angry that I have forced you to sprout into laurels.

Yet you say you are vain of it, and that you are no philosopher.

Now, if you are vain I am sure you are a philosopher; for it is a

maxim of mine, and one of my own making, that there never was a

philosopher that did not love sweetmeats. ou tell me too, that

you like I should scold you but since you have appeared as

Bonner's ghost, I think I shall feel too much awe; for though

(which I never expected would be in my power) I have made you

stand in a white sheet, I doubt my respect is increased. I never

did rate you for being too bad, but too good: and if, when you

make up your week's account, YOU find but a fraction of vanity in

the sum total, you will fall to repenting, and Come forth On

Monday as humble as * * *. Then, if I huff my heart Out, you

will only simper, and still wrap yourself up in your obstinate

goodness. Well! take your own way; I give you Up to your

abominable virtues, and will go answer the rest of your letter.

I congratulate you on the demolition of the Bastille; I mean as

you do, of its' functions.(680) For the poor soul itself, I had

no ill will to it: on the contrary, it was a curious sample of

ancient castellar dungeons, which the good folks the founders

took for palaces: yet I always hated to drive by it, knowing the

miseries it contained. Of itself it did not gobble up prisoners

to glut its maw, but received them by command. The destruction

of it was silly, and agreeable to the ideas of a mob, who do not

know stones and bars and bolts from a lettre de cachet. If the

country remains free, the Bastille would be as tame as a

ducking-Stool, now that there is no such thing as a scold. If

despotism recovers, the Bastille will rise from its ashes!--

recover, I fear, it will. The `Etats cannot remain a mob of

kings, and will prefer a single one to a larger mob of kings and

greater tyrants. The nobility, the clergy, and people of

property will wait, till by address and Money they can divide the

people; or, whoever gets the larger or more victorious army into

his hands, will be a Cromwell or a Monk. In short, a revolution

procured by a national vertigo does not promise a crop of

legislators. It is time that composes a good constitution: it

formed ours. We were near losing it by the lax and unconditional

restoration of Charles the Second. The revolution was temperate,

and has lasted; and, though it might have been improved, we know

that with all its moderation it disgusted half the nation, who

would have brought back the old sores. I abominate the

Inquisition as much as you do: yet if the King of Spain receives

no check like his cousin Louis, I fear he will not be disposed to

relax any terrors. Every crowned head in Europe must ache at

present; and the frantic and barbarous proceedings in France will

not meliorate the stock of liberty, though for some time their

majesties will be mighty tender of the rights of their subjects.

According to this hypothesis, I can administer some comfort to

you about your poor negroes. I do not imagine that they will be

emancipated at once; but their fate will be much alleviated, as

the attempt will have alarmed their butchers enough to make them

gentler, like the European monarchs, for fear of"provoking the

disinterested, who have no sugar plantations, to abolish the

horrid traffic.

I do not understand the manoeuvre of sugar, and, perhaps, am

going to talk nonsense, as my idea maybe impracticable; but I

Wish human wit, which is really very considerable in mechanics

and merchantry, could devise some method of cultivating canes and

making sugar without the manual labour of the human" species.

How many mills and inventions have there not been discovered to

supply succedaneums to the works of the hands, which before the

discoveries would have been treated as visions! It is true,

manual labour has sometimes taken it very ill to be excused, and

has destroyed such mills; but the poor negroes would not rise and

insist upon being worked to death. Pray talk to some ardent

genius, but do not name me; not merely because I may have talked

like an idiot, but because my ignorance might, ipso C fiacto,

stamp the idea with ridicule. People, I know, do not love to be

put out of their old ways: no farmer listens at first to new

inventions in agriculture; and I don't doubt but bread was

originally deemed a new-fangled vagary, by those who had seen

their fathers live very comfortably upon acorns. Nor is there

any harm in starting new game to invention: many excellent

discoveries have been made by men who were a la chasse of

something very different. I am not quite sure that the art of

making gold and of* living for ever have been yet found out: yet

to how many noble discoveries has the pursuit of those nostrums

given birth! Poor chymistry, had she not had such glorious

objects in view! If you are sitting under a cowslip at your

cottage, these reveries may amuse you for half an hour, at least

make you smile; and for the ease of your conscience, which is

always in a panic, they require no answer.(681)

I will not ask you about the new history of Bristol,(682) because

you are too good a citizen to say a word against your native

place; but do pray cast your eye on the prints of The cathedral

and castle, the chef-d',oeuvres of Chatterton's ignorance, and of

Mr. Barrett's too; and on two letters pretended to have been sent

to me, and which never were sent. If my incredulity had wavered,

they would have fixed it. I wish the milkwoman would assert that

Boadicea's dairymaid had invented Dutch tiles; it would be like

Chatterton's origin of heraldry and painted glass, in those two

letters. I must, however, mention one word about myself. In the

new fourth volume of the Biographia Britannica I am more candidly

treated about that poor lad than usual: yet the writer still

affirms, that, according to my own account, my reply was too much

in the-commonplace style of court replies. Now my own words, and

the truth, as they stand in print in the very letter of mine

which this author quotes, were, "I wrote him a letter with as

much kindness and tenderness as if I had been his guardian." Is

this by my own account a court-reply? Nor did I conceive, for I

never was a courtier, that courtiers are wont to make tender

replies to the poor; I am glad to hear they do.

I have kept this letter some days in my writing-box, till I could

meet with a stray member of parliament, for it is not worth

making you pay for: but when you talk to me I cannot help

answering incontinently; besides, can one take up a letter at a

long distance, and heat one's reply over again with the same

interest that it occasioned at first? Adieu! I wish you may come

to Hampton before I leave these purlieus! Yours More and More.

(680) Miss More had written to Walpole,--"Poor France! though I

am sorry that the lawless rabble are so triumphant, I cannot help

hoping that some good will arise from the sum of human misery

having been so considerably lessened at one blow by the

destruction of the Bastille. The utter extinction of the

Inquisition, and the redemption of Africa, I hope yet to see

accomplished." Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 170.-E.

(681) To this passage Miss More thus replies:--"Your project for

relieving our poor slaves by machine work is so far from being

wild or chimerical, that of three persons deep and able in the

concern (Mr. Wilberforce among others), not one but has thought

it rational and practicable, and that a plough may be so

constructed as to save much misery." Memoirs, vol. ii. p.

187.-,E.

(682) "The History and Antiquities of Bristol, by William

Barrett:" Bristol, 1789, quarto; a Work which Mr. Park described

as " a motley compound of real and superstitious history."-E.

Letter 347 To Miss Hannah More.

Strawberry Hill, Nov. 4, 1789. (PAGE 444)

I am not surprised, my dear Madam, that the notice of my illness

should have stimulated your predominant quality, your

sensibility. 1 cannot do less in return than relieve it

immediately, by assuring you that I am in a manner recovered; and

should have gone out before this time, if my mind were as much at

ease as my poor limbs. I have passed, five months most

uncomfortably; the two last most unhappily. In June and

September I had two bad falls by my own lameness and weakness,

and was much bruised; while I was witness to the danger, and then

to the death, of my invaluable niece, Lady Dysart. She was

angelic, and has left no children. The unexpected death of Lord

Waldegrave(683) one of the most amiable of men, has not only

deprived me of him, but has opened a dreadful scene of

calamities! he and my niece were the happiest and most domestic

of couples.

Your kind inquiries after me have drawn these details from me,

for which I make no excuse; good-nature never grudges its pity.

I, who love to force your gravity to smile, am seriously better

pleased to indulge your benevolence with a subject of esteem,

which, though moving your compassion, will be accompanied by no

compunction. I will now answer your letter. Your plea, that not

composition, but business, has occasioned your silence, is no

satisfaction to me. In my present anxious solitude I have again

read Bonner and Florio, and the Bas Bleu; and do you think I am

much pleased to learn that you have not been writing? Who is it

says something like this line?--

Hannah will not write, and Lactilla will.

They who think her Earl Goodwin will outgo Shakspeare, might be

in the right, if they specified in what way. I believe she may

write worse than he sometimes did, though that is not easy; but

to excel him--oh! I have not words adequate to my contempt for

those who can suppose such a possibility!

I am sorry, very sorry, for what you tell me of poor Barrett's

fate. Though he did write worse than Shakspeare, it is great

pity he was told so, as it killed him; and I rejoice that I did

not publish a word in contradiction of the letters which he said

Chatterton sent to me, as I was advised to do. I might have

laughed at the poor man's folly, and then I should have been

miserable to have added a grain to the poor man's

mortification.(684)

you rejoice me, not my vanity, by telling me my idea of a

mechanic succedaneum to the labour of negroes is not visionary,

but thought practicable. Oh! how I wish I understood sugar

ploughs, and could marry them! Alas! I understand nothing

useful. My head is as un-mechanic as it is un-arithmetic,

un-geometric, un-metaphysic, uncommercial; but will not some one

of those superior heads to whom you have talked on my indigested

hint reduce it to practicability'! How a feasible scheme would

stun those who call humanity romantic, and show, from the books

of the Custom-house, that murder is a great improvement of the

revenue! Even the present situation of France is favourable.

Could not Mr. Wilberforce obtain to have the enfranchisement of

the negroes started there? The Jews are claiming their natural

rights there; and blacks are certainly not so great defaulters as

the Hebrews, though they too have undergone ample persecutions.

Methinks, as Lord George Gordon is in correspondence with the

`Etats, he has been a little remiss in not signing the petition

of those of his new communion.

The `Etats are detestable and despicable; and, in fact, guilty of

the outrages of the Parisian and provincial mobs. The mob of

twelve hundred, not legislators, but dissolvers of all law,

unchained the mastiffs that had been tied up, and were sure to

worry all who fell in their way. To annihilate all laws, however

bad, and to have none ready to replace them, was proclaiming

anarchy. What should one think of a mad-doctor, who should let

loose a lunatic, suffer him to burn Bedlam, chop off the heads of

the keepers, and then consult with some students in physic on the

gentlest mode of treating delirium? By a late vote I see that

the twelve hundred praters are reduced to five hundred: Vive la

reine Billingsgate! the Thalestris who has succeeded Louis

Quatorze! A committee of those Amazons stopped the Duke of

Orleans, who, to use their style, I believe is not a barrel the

better herring.

Your reflections on Vertot's passion for revolutions are

admirable,(685) and yet it is natural for an historian to like to

describe times of action. Halcyon days do not furnish matter for

talents; they are like the virtuous couple in a comedy, a little

insipid. Mr. Manly and Lady Grace, Mellefont and Cynthia, do not

interest one much. Indeed, in a tragedy where they are unhappy,

they give the audience full satisfaction, and no envy. The

newspapers, no doubt, thought Dr. Priestley could not do better

than to espouse you.(686) He certainly would be very judicious,

could he obtain your consent; but, alas! you would squabble about

Socinianism, or some of those isms. To tell you the truth, I

hate all those Constantinopolitan jargons, that set people

together by the ears about pedantic terms. When you apply

scholastic phrases as happily and genteelly as you do in your Bas

Bleu, they are delightful; but don't muddify your charming

simplicity with controversial distinctions, that will sour your

sweet piety. Sects are the bane of charity, and have deluged the

world with blood.

I do not mean, by what I am going to say, to extort another

letter from you before I have the pleasure of seeing you at

Hampton; but I really shall be much obliged to you for a single

line soon, only to tell me if Miss Williams is at Stoke with the

Duchess of Beaufort. To a short note, cannot you add a short P.

S. on the fate of Earl Goodwin?(687) Lac mihi novum non frigore

desit.

Adieu! my amiable friend! Yours most sincerely.

(683) George fourth Earl of Waldegrave born in 1751; married, in

1782, his cousin Lady Elizabeth Laura Waldegrave, daughter of

James, the second Earl. He died on the 22d of October.-E.

(684) Mr. Barrett was the person who first encouraged Chatterton

to publish the poems which he attributed to Rowley. He was a

respectable surgeon at Bristol.-E.

(685) Miss More, in her last letter, had said--"What a pity it is

that Vertot is not alive that man's element was a state

convulsion; he hopped over peaceful intervals, as periods of no

value, and only seemed to enjoy himself when all the rest of the

world was sad. Storm and tempest were his halcyon days."-E.

(686) In her letter to Walpole Miss More had said,--"I comforted

myself., that your two fair wives were within reach of your

elbow-chair, and that their pleasant society would somewhat

mitigate the sufferings of your confinement. Apropos of two

wives--when the newspapers the other day were pleased to marry me

to Dr. Priestley, I am surprised they did not rather choose to

bestow me on Mr. Madan, as his wife is probably better broken in

to these eastern usages, than Mrs. Priestley may be. I never saw

the Doctor but once in my life, and he had then

been married above twenty years." Memoirs, vol. ii. P. 188.-E.

(687) Ann Yearsley's tragedy, which had just been represented,

with little success, at the Bath and Bristol theatres. In reply

to Walpole's query, Miss More says, "There are, I dare say, some

Pretty Passages in it, but all seem to bring it in guilty of the

crime of dullness; which I take to be the greatest fault in

dramatic composition."-E.

Letter 348 To Miss Hannah More.

Berkeley Square, Feb. 20, 1790. (PAGE 446)

It is very provoking that people must always be hanging or

drowning themselves, or going mad, that you forsooth, Mistress,

may have the diversion of exercising your pity and good-nature,

and charity, and intercession, and all that bead-roll of virtues

that make you so troublesome and amiable, when you might be ten

times more agreeable by things that would not cost one above

half-a-crown at a time.(688) YOU are an absolutely walking

hospital, and travel about into lone and bye places, with your

doors open to house stray casualties! I wish at least that you

would have some children yourself, that you might not be plaguing

one for all the Pretty brats that are starving and friendless. I

suppose it was some such goody two or three thousand years ago

that suggested the idea of an alna-mater, suckling the three

hundred and sixty-five bantlings of the Countess of Hainault.

Well, as your newly-adopted pensioners have two babes, I insist

on your accepting two guineas for them instead of one at present

(that is, when you shall be present). i If you cannot

circumscribe your own charities, you shall not stint mine, Madam,

who can afford it much better, and who must be dunned for alms,

and do not scramble over hedges and ditches in searching for

opportunities of flinging away my money on good works. I employ

mine better at auctions, and in buying pictures and baubles, and

hoarding curiosities, that in truth I cannot keep long but that

will last for ever in my catalogue, and make me immortal! Alas!

will they cover a multitude of sins? Adieu! I cannot jest after

that sentence. Yours sincerely.

(688) Miss More was at this

time raising a subscription for the benefit of the family of a

poor man who had been cut down after he had nearly hung

himself.-E.

Letter 349 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(689)

Strawberry Hill, June 25, 1790. (PAGE 447)

I am glad at least that you was not fetched to town on last

Tuesday, which was as hot as if Phaeton had once more gotten into

his papa's curricle and driven it along the lower road; but the

old king has resumed the reins again, and does not allow us a

handful more of beams than come to our northern share. I am

glad, too, that I was not summoned also to the Fitzroyal

arrangement: it was better to be singed here, than exposed

between two such fiery furnaces as Lady Southampton and my niece

Keppel. I pity Charles Fox to be kept on the Westminster

gridiron.(690) Before I came out of town, I was diverted by a

story from the hustings: one of the mob called out to Fox, "Well,

Charley, are not you sick of your coalition?" "Poor gentleman!"

cried an old woman in the crowd, "why should not he like a

collation?"

I am very sorry Mrs. Damer is so tormented, but I hope the new

inflammation will relieve her. As I was writing that sentence

this morning, Mesdames de Boufflers came to see me from Richmond,

and brought a Comte de Moranville to see my house. The puerile

pedants of their `Etats are going to pull down the statues of

Louis Quatorze, like their silly ancestors, who proposed to

demolish the tomb of John Duke of Bedford. The Vicomte de

Mirabeau is arrested somewhere for something, perhaps for one of

his least crimes; in short, I M angry that the cause of liberty

is profaned by such rascals. If the two German Kings make peace,

as you hear and as I expected, the Brabanters, who seem not to

have known much better what to do with their revolution, will be

the first sacrifice on the altar of peace.

I stick fast at the beginning of the first volume of Bruce,(691)

though I am told it is the most entertaining; but I am sick of

his vanity, and (I believe) of his want of veracity; but I am

sure of his want of method and of his obscurity. I hope my wives

were not at Park-place in your absence: the loss of them is

irreparable to me, and I tremble to think how much more I shall

feel it in three months, when I am to part with them for--who can

tell how long? Adieu!

(689) Now first printed.

(690) At the close of the election, on the 2d of July, the

numbers were, for Mr. Fox 3516, Lord Hood 3217, and Mr. Horne

Took 1697.-E.

(691) Bruce's "Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile" had

just appeared, in five large quarto volumes. It was dedicated to

George the Third, who, while society in general raised a cry of

incredulity against it, stood up warmly in its' favour, and

contended that it was a great work.-E.

Letter 350 To The Earl Of Strafford.

Strawberry Hill, June 26, 1790. (page 448)

I do not forget your lordship's commands, though I do recollect

my own inability to divert you. Every year at my advanced time

of life would make more reasonable my plea of knowing nothing

worth repeating, especially at this season. The general topic of

elections is the last subject to which I could listen: there is

not one about which I care a straw; and I believe your lordship

quite as indifferent. I am not much more au fait of war. or

peace; I hope for the latter, nay and expect it, because it is

not yet war. Pride and anger do not deliberate to the middle of

the campaign; and I believe even the great incendiaries are more

intent on making a good bargain than on saving their honour. If

they save lives, I care not who is the better politician; and, as

I am not to be their judge, I do not inquire what false weights

they fling into the scales. Two-thirds of France, who are not so

humble as I, seem to think they can entirely new-model the world

with metaphysical compasses; and hold that no injustice, no

barbarity, need to be counted in making the experiment. Such

legislators are sublime empirics, and in their universal

benevolence have very little individual sensibility. In short,

the result of my reflections on what has passed in Europe for

these latter centuries is, that tyrants have no consciences, and

reformers no feeling; and the world suffers both by the plague

and by the cure. What oceans of blood were Luther and Calvin the

authors of being spilt! The late French government was

detestable; yet I still doubt whether a civil war will not be the

consequence of the revolution, and then what may be the upshot?

Brabant was grievously provoked; is it sure that it will be

emancipated? For how short a time do people who set out on the

most just principles, advert to their first springs of motion,

and retain consistency? Nay, how long can promoters of

revolutions be sure of maintaining their own ascendant? They are

like projectors, who are commonly ruined; while others make

fortunes on the foundation laid by the inventors.

Letter 351 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, Wednesday night, July 1, 1790. (page 448)

It is certainly not from having any thing to tell you, that I

reply so soon, but as the most agreeable thing I can do in my

confinement. The gout came into my heel the night before last,

perhaps from the deluge and damp. I increased it yesterday by

limping about the house with a party I had to breakfast. To-day

I am lying on the settee, unable to walk alone, or even to put on

a slipper. However, as I am much easier this evening, I trust it

will go off.

I do not love disputes, and shall not argue with you about Bruce;

but, if you like him, you shall not choose an author for me. It

is the most absurd, obscure, and tiresome book I know. I shall

admire if you have a clear conception about most of the persons

and matters in his work; but, in fact, I do not believe you have.

Pray, can you distinguish between his cock and hen Heghes, and

between A Yasouses and Ozoros? and do you firmly believe that an

old man and his son were sent for and put to death, because the

King had run into a thornbush, and was forced to leave his

clothes behind him? Is it your faith, that one of their

Abyssinian Majesties pleaded not being able to contribute towards

sending for a new Abuna, because he had spent all his money at

Venice in looking-glasses? And do you really think that Peter

Paez was a Jack-of-all-trades, and built palaces and convents

without assistance, and furnished them with his own hands? You,

who are a little apt to contest most assertions, must have

strangely let out your credulity!(692) I could put forty

questions to you as wonderful; and, for my part, could as soon

credit * * * *.

I am tired of railing at French barbarity and folly. They are

more puerile now serious, than -when in the long paroxysm of gay

levity. Legislators, a senate, to neglect laws, in order to

annihilate coats of arms and liveries! to pull down a King, and

set up an Emperor! They are hastening to establish the tribunal

of the praetorian guards; for the sovereignty, it seems, is not

to be hereditary. One view of their F`ete of the 14th,(693) I

suppose, is to draw money to Paris; and the consequence will be,

that the deputies will return to the provinces drunk with

independence and self-importance, and will commit fifty times

more excesses, massacres, and devastations, than last year.

George Selwyn says, that Monsieur, the King's brother, is the

only man of rank from whom they cannot take a title.(694)

How franticly have the French acted, and how rationally the

Americans! But Franklin and Washington were great men. None have

appeared yet in France; and Necker has only returned to make a

wretched figure! He is become as insignificant as his King; his

name is never mentioned, but now and then as disapproving

something that is done. Why then does he stay? Does he wait to

strike some great stroke, when every thing is demolished? His

glory, which consisted in being minister though a Protestant, is

vanished by the destruction of popery; the honour of which, I

suppose, he will scarce assume to himself. I have vented my

budget, and now good night! I feel almost as if I could walk up

to bed.

(692 Though Bruce's work was attacked at the time by the critics

with much virulence, his statements have been more or less

confirmed by Salt, Burckhardt, Wit-an, Clarke, Belzoni, and other

distinguished travellers. Bruce never replied to any of his

opponents; but sometimes said to his daughter, that he hoped she

would live to see the time when the truth of what he had written

would be established. He lost his life in April 1794, in

consequence of an accidental slip of his foot, while handing a

lady down stairs to her carriage. A second edition of his

Travels was published in 1805, by Dr. Alexander Murray, from a

copy which the traveller had himself prepared for the press.-E.

(693) The grand federation in the Champ de Mar, on the

anniversary of the taking of the Bastille, thus described by M.

Thiers:--"A magnificent amphitheatre, formed at the further

extremity, was destined for the national authorities. The King

and the president sat beside one another on similar seats.

Behind the King was an elevated balcony for the Queen and the

court. The ministers were at some distance before from the King,

and the deputies ranged on either side. Four hundred thousand

spectators occupied the lateral amphitheatres. Sixty thousand

armed federalists performed their evolutions in the intermediate

space; and in the centre, upon a base twenty-five feet high,

stood the altar of the country. Three hundred priests, in white

surplices and tricoloured scarfs, covered the steps, and were to

officiate. The Bishop of Anton" [afterwards Prince Talleyrand]

began the mass. Divine service over, La Fayette received the

orders of the King, who handed to him the form of the oath. La

Fayette carried it to the altar. At this moment all the banners

waved, every sabre glistened. The general the army, the

president, the deputies cried 'I swear it.' The King, standing,

with his hand outstretched towards the altar, said 'I King of the

French, swear,' etc. At this moment., the Queen, moved by the

general emotion, clasped in her arms the august child, the heir

to the throne, and, from the balcony, showed him to the assembled

nation. At this moment shouts of joy, attachment 'enthusiasm,

were addressed to the mother and the child, and all hearts were

hers." History of the Revolution, vol. i. p. 155.-E.

(694) On the 20th of Julio, a decree, that the titles of duke,

count, marquis, viscount, baron, and chevalier should be

suppressed, had been carried in the National Assembly by a large

majority.-E.

Letter 352 To Miss Berry.

Strawberry Hill, Saturday night, July 3, 1790. (page 450)

How kind to write the very moment you arrived! but pray do not

think that, welcome as your letters are, I would purchase them at

the price of any fatigue to you-a proviso I put in already

against moments when you may be more weary than by a journey to

Lymington. You make me happy by the good accounts of Miss Agnes;

and I should be completely so, if the air of the sea could be so

beneficial to you both, as to make your farther journey

unnecessary to your healths, at least for some time; for--and I

protest solemnly that not a personal thought enters into the

consideration--I shall be excessively alarmed at your going to

the Continent. when such a frenzy has seized it. You see by the

papers, that the flame has burst out at Florence: can Pisa then

be secure? Flanders can be no safe road; and is any part of

France so? I told you in my last of the horrors at Avignon. At

Madrid the people are riotous against the war with us, and

prosecuted I am persuaded it will not be; but the demon of Gaul

is busy every where. The Etats, who are as foolish as atrocious,

have printed lists of the surnames which the late noblesse are to

assume or resume; as if people did not know their own names. I

like a speech I have heard of the Queen. She went with the King

to see the manufacture of glass, and, as they passed the Halles,

the poissardes huzzaed them; "Upon my word," said the Queen,

"these folks are civiler when you visit them, than when they

visit you." This marked both spirit and good -humour. For my

part, I am so shocked at French barbarity, that I begin to think

that our hatred of them is not national prejudice, but natural

instinct; as tame animals are born with an antipathy to beasts of

prey.

Mrs. Damer tells me in a letter to-day, that Lady Ailesbury was

charmed with you both (which did not surprise either of us); and

she never saw two persons have so much taste for the country, who

have no place of their Own. It may be so; but begging her

ladyship's pardon and yours, I think that people who have a place

of their own, are mighty apt not to like any other.

I feel all the kindness at your determination of coming to

Twickenham in August, and shall certainly say no more against it,

though I am certain that I shall count every day that passes; and

when they are passed, they will leave a melancholy impression on

Strawberry, that I had rather have affixed to London. The two

last summers were infinitely the pleasantest I ever passed here,

for I never before had an agreeable neighbourhood. Still I loved

the place, and had no comparisons to draw. Now, the

neighbourhood will remain, and will appear ten times worse; with

the aggravation of remembering two months that may have some

transient roses, but I am sure, lasting thorns. You tell me I do

not write with my usual spirits: at least I will suppress, as

much as I can, the want of them, though I am a bad

dissembler.(695)

You do not mention the cathedral at Winchester, which I have

twice seen and admired; nor do you say any thing of Bevismount

and Netley--charming Netley! At Lyndhurst you passed the palatial

hovel of my royal nephew; who I have reason to wish had never

been so, and did all I could to prevent his being.

The week before last I met the Marlboroughs at Lady Di's. The

Duchess(696) desired to come and see Strawberry again, as it had

rained the whole time she was here last. I proposed the next

morning: no, she could not: she expected company to dinner; she

believed their brother, Lord Robert(697) would dine with them: I

thought that a little odd, as they had Just turned him out for

Oxfordshire; and I thought a dinner no cause at the distance of

four miles. In her grace's dawdling way, she could fix no time:

and so on Friday, at half an hour after seven, as I was going to

Lady North's, they arrived; and the sun being setting, and the

moon not risen, You may judge how much they could see through all

the painted glass by twilight.

(695) In a letter written in this month to Walpole, Miss More

asks, "Where and how are the Berrys? I hope they are within

reach of your great chair, if you are confined, and of your

airings, if you go abroad. I hate their going to Yorkshire: as

Hotspur Says, 'What do they do in the north, when they ought to

be in the south?", Memoirs, vol.ii. p. 235.-E.

(696) Lady Caroline Russell; married, in 1762, to the Duke of

Marlborough.

(697) Lord Robert Spencer, brother of the Duke of Marlborough.

Letter 353 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, August 9, at night, 1790. (page 452)

MR. NICHOLLS has offered to be postman to you; whereof, though I

have nothing, or as little as nothing, to say, I thought as how,

it would look kinder to send nothing in writing than by word of

mouth.

Nothing the first. So the peace is made, and the stocks drank

its health in a bumper; but when they waked the next morning,

they found they had reckoned without their host, and that their

majesties the King of big Britain and the King of little Spain

have agreed to make peace some time or other, if they can agree

upon it; and so the stocks drew in their horns: but, having great

trust in some time or other, they only fell two pegs lower. I,

who never believed there would be war, keep my prophetic stocks

up to par, and my consolation still higher; for when Spanish

pride truckles, and English pride has had the honour of bullying,

I dare to say we shall be content with the ostensible triumph, as

Spain will be with some secret article that will leave her much

where she was before. Vide Falkland's Island.

Nothing the second. Miss Gunning's match with Lord Blandford.

You asserted it so peremptorily, that, though I doubted it, I

quoted you. Lo! it took its rise solely in poor old Bedford's

dotage, that still harps on conjunctions copulative, but now

disavows it, as they say, on a remonstrance from her daughter.

Nothing the third. Nothing will come of nothing, says King Lear,

and your humble servant.

Letter 354 To The Earl Of Strafford.

Strawberry Hill, August 12, 1790. (page 452)

I must not pretend any longer, my dear lord, that this region is

void of news and diversions. Oh! we can innovate as well as

neighbouring nations. If an Earl Stanhope, though he cannot be a

tribune, is ambitious of being a plebeian, he may without law be

as vulgar as heart can wish; and, though we have not a national

assembly to lay the axe to the root of nobility, the peerage have

got a precedent for laying themselves in the kennel. Last night

the Earl of Barrymore was so humble as to perform a buffoon-dance

and act Scaramouch in a pantomime at Richmond for the benefit of

Edwin, Jun. the comedian:(698) and I, like an old fool, but

calling myself a philosopher that loves to study human nature in

all its disguises, went to see the performance.