Let me repeat to both, that distance of place and time can make

no alteration in my friendship. It grew from esteem for your

characters, and understandings, and tempers; and became affection

from your good-natured attentions 'to me, where there is so vast

a disproportion in our ages. Indeed, that complaisance spoiled

me; but I have weaned myself of my own self-love, and you shall

hear no more of its dictates.

(745) The last mistress of Louis; the Fifteenth. The Count du

Barry who had disgraced his name by marrying her, claimed to be

of the same family with the Earls of Barrymore in Ireland.-E.

(746) See ante, p. 452, letter 354.

(747) Mrs. Hastings was supposed, by the party violence of the

day, to have received immense bribes in diamonds.

(748) A vagabond so called, from his going about attempting to

stab at women with a knife. His first aim had probably been at

their Pockets, which having in several instances missed and

wounded his intended victims, fear and a love of the marvellous

dubbed him with the name of the Monster. The wretch, whose name

was Renwick Williams, was tried for the offence at the Old

Bailey, in July 1790, and found guilty of a misdemeanour.-E.

(749) After numerous interruptions, the King's aunts were

permitted by the National Assembly to proceed to Italy.-E.

(750) "I have passed," says Gibbon, in a letter to Lord

Sheffield, "four days at the castle of Copet with Necker; and

could have wished to have shown him as a warning to any aspiring

youth possessed with the demon of ambition. With all the means

of private happiness in his power, he is the most miserable of

human beings; the past, the present, and the future, are equally

odious to him. When I suggested some domestic amusement of

books, building, etc. he answered, with a deep tone Of despair,

'Dans l'`etat o`u je suis, je ne puis sentir que le coup de vent

qui m'a abbatu.' How different from the conscious cheerfulness

with which our friend Lord North supported his fall! Madame

Necker maintains more external composure, mais le diable n'y perd

rien. It is true that Necker wished to be carried into the

closet, like old Pitt, on the shoulders of the people, and that

he has been ruined by the democracy which he had raised. I

believe him to be an able financier and know him to be an honest

man."-E.

(751) The following are Gibbon's expressions:--"Burke's book is a

most admirable medicine against the French disease; which has

made too much progress even in this happy country. I admire his

eloquence, I approve his politics, I adore his Chivalry, and I

can forgive even his superstition."-E.

(752) M. Bailly, the learned astronomer. He was president of the

first National Assembly, and in July 1789, appointed mayor of

Paris; in which situation he gave great offence to the people, in

July 1791, by ordering martial law to be proclaimed against a mob

which had assembled in the Champ de Mars to frame an address,

recommending the deposition of Louis. For this step, which was

approved of by the Assembly, he was arrested, tried, condemned,

and put to death on the 11th of November 1793. The details of

this event are horrible. "The weather," says M. Thiers, "was

cold and rainy, Conducted on foot, he manifested the utmost

composure amidst the insults of a barbarous populace, whom he had

fed while he +was mayor. On reaching the foot of the scaffold,

one of the wretches cried out, that the field of' the federation

ought not to be polluted by his blood. The people instantly

rushed upon the guillotine, bore it off, and erected it again

upon a dunghill on the bank of the Seine, and opposite to the

spot where Bailly had passed his life and composed his invaluable

works. This operation lasted some hours: meanwhile, he was

compelled to walk several times round the Champ de Mars,

bareheaded, and with his hands pinioned behind him. Some pelted

him with mud, others kicked and struck him with sticks. He fell

exhausted. They lifted him up again. 'Thou tremblest!' said a

soldier to him. 'My friend,' replied the old man, 'it is cold.'

At length he was delivered over to the executioner; and another

illustrious scholar, and one of the most virtuous of men, was

then taken from it." Vol. iii. p. 207-E.

(753) See post, p. 484.-E.

(754) Mr. Gifford was of Walpole's opinion, and has, in

consequence, accorded to " The Charming-man" a prominent

situation in the Baviad:--

"See snivilling Jerningham at fifty weep

O'er love-lorn oxen and deserted sheep."

To the poem here alluded to, and which was entitled "Peace,

Ignominy, and Destruction," the satirist thus alludes:-"I thought

I understood something of faces; but I must read my Lavater over

again I find. That a gentleman, with the physionomie \2d'un

mouton qui r`eve,' should suddenly start up a new Tyrtaeus, and

pour a dreadful note, through a cracked war-trump, amazes me:

well, fronti nulla fides shall henceforth be my motto' In a note

to the Pursuits of Literature, Mr. Mathias directs the attention

of Jerningham to the following beautiful lines in Dryden's

Epistle to Mr. Julien, Secretary of the Muses:--

"All his care

Is to be thought a Poet fine and fair;

Small beer and gruel are his meat and drink,

The diet he prescribes himself to think;

Rhyme next his heart he takes at morning peep,

Some love-epistles at the hour of sleep;

And when his passion has been bubbling long,

The scum at last boils Up into a song." --E.

Letter 372 To The Miss Berrys.

Berkeley Square, March 5, 1791. (page 483)

One may live in a vast capital, and know no more of three parts

of it than of Carthage. When I was at Florence, I have surprised

some Florentines by telling them, that London was built, like

their city, (where you often cross the bridges several times in a

day,) on each side of the river: and yet that I had never been

but on one side; for then I had never been in Southwark. When I

was very young, and in the height of the opposition to my father,

my mother wanted a large parcel of bugles; for what use I forget.

As they were then out of fashion, she could get none. At last,

she was told of a quantity in a little shop in an obscure alley

in the City. We drove thither; found a great stock; she bought

it, and bade the proprietor send it home. He said, "Whither?"

"To Sir Robert Walpole's." He asked coolly, "Who is Sir Robert

Walpole?"

This is very like Cambridge, who tells you three stories to make

you understand a fourth. In short, t'other morning a gentleman

made me a visit, and asked if I had heard of the great misfortune

that had happened? The Albion Mills are burnt down. I asked

where they were; supposing they were powder-mills in the country,

that had blown up. I had literally never seen or heard of the

spacious lofty building at the end of Blackfriars Bridge. At

first it was supposed maliciously burnt, and it is certain the

mob stood and enjoyed the conflagration, as of a monopoly; but it

had been on fire, and it was thought extinguished. The building

had cost a hundred thousand Pounds; and the loss in corn and

flour is calculated at a hundred and forty thousand. I do not

answer for the truth of the sums; but it is certain that the

Palace-yard and part of St. James's Park were covered with

half-burnt grain.(755)

This accident, and my introduction, have helped me to a good part

Of my letter; for you must have observed, that even in this

overgrown town the winter has not been productive of events.

Good night! I have two days to wait for a letter that I may

answer. Stay -, I should tell you, that I have been at Sir

Joseph Banks's literary saturnalia,(756) where was a Parisian

watchmaker, who produced the smallest autoMaton that I suppose

was ever created. It was a rich snuffbox, not too large for a

woman. On opening the lid, an enamelled bird started up, sat on

the rim, turned round, fluttered its wings, and piped in a

delightful tone the notes of different birds; particularly the

jug-jug of the nightingale. It is the prettiest plaything you

ever saw; the price tempting--only five hundred pounds. That

economist, the Prince of Wales, could not resist it, and has

bought one of those dickybirds. If the maker finds such

customers, he will not end like one of his profession here, who

made the serpent in Orpheus and Eurydice;(757) and who fell so

deeply in love with his own works, that he did nothing afterwards

but make serpents, of all sorts and sizes, till he was ruined and

broke. I have not a tittle to add-but that the Lord Mayor did

not fetch Madame du Barry in the City-royal coach; but kept her

to dinner. She is gone; but returns in April.

(755) The fire took place on the morning of the 2d of March.

There was no reason for any particular suspicion, except the

general dislike in the lower classes of the people, arising from

a notion, that the undertaking enhanced the price of corn and

decreased the value of labour.-E.

(756) Sir Joseph Banks, while President of the Royal Society, had

a weekly evening reception of all persons distinguished in

science or the arts.

(757) A celebrated opera.

Letter 373 To Miss Berry.

Strawberry Hill, Saturday, March 19, 1791. (page 484)

I did not begin my letter on customary Friday , because I had

nothing new to tell or to say. The town lies fallow--not an

incident worth repeating as far as I know. Parliament

manufactures only bills, not politics. I never understood any

thing useful; and, now that my time and connexions are shrunk to

so narrow a compass, what business have I with business? As I

have mended considerably for the last four days, and as we have

had a fortnight of soft warm weather, and a southwest wind

to-day, I have ventured hither for change Of air, and to give

orders about some repairs at Cliveden; which, by the way, Mr.

Henry Bunbury, two days ago, proposed to take off my hands for

his life. I really do not think I accepted his offer. I shall

return to town on Monday, and hope to find a letter to answer--or

what will this do?

Berkeley Square, Monday evening.

I am returned and find the only letter I dreaded, and the only

one, I trust, that I shall ever not be impatient to receive from

you. Though ten thousand times kinder than I deserve, it wounds

my heart: as I find I have hurt two of the persons I love the

best upon earth', and whom I am most constantly studying to

please and serve. That I soon repented of my murmurs, you have

seen by my subsequent letters. The truth, as you may have

perceived, though no excuse, was, that I had thought myself

dying, and should never see you more; that I was extremely weak

and low, when Mrs. Damer's letter arrived, and mentioned her

supposing that I should not see you till spring twelvemonth.

That terrible sentence recalled Mr. Batt's being the first to

assure me of your going abroad, when I had concluded you had laid

aside the design. I did sincerely allow that in both instances

you had acted from tenderness in concealing your intentions; but,

as I knew I could better bear the information from yourselves

than from others, I thought it unfriendly to let me learn from

others what interested me so deeply: yet I do not in the least

excuse my conduct; no, I condemn it in every light, and shall

never forgive myself if you do not promise me to be guided

entirely by your own convenience and inclinations about your

return. I am perfectly well again, and just as likely to live

one year as half an one. Indulge your pleasure

in being abroad while you are there. I am now reasonable enough

to enjoy your happiness as my own; and, since you are most kind

when I least deserve it, how can I express my gratitude for

giving up the scruple that was so distressing to me! Convince me

you are in earnest by giving me notice that you will write to

Charingcross while the Neapolitans are at Florence.(758) I will

look on that as a clearer proof of your forgiving my criminal

letter, than your return before you like it. It is most sure

that nothing is more solid or less personal than my friendship

for you two; and even my complaining letter, though unjust and

unreasonable, proved that the nearer I thought myself to quitting

the world, the more my heart was set on my two friends; nay, they

had occupied the busiest moments of my illness as well as the

most fretful ones. Forgive then, my dearest friends, what could

proceed from nothing but too impatient affection. You say most

truly you did not deserve my complaints: your patience and temper

under them make me but more in the wrong; and to have hurt you,

who have known but too much grief, is such a contradiction to the

whole turn of my mind ever since I knew you, that I believe my

weakness from illness was beyond even what I suspected. It is

sure that, when I am in my perfect senses, the whole bent of my

thoughts is to promote your and your sister's felicity; and you

know nothing can give me satisfaction like your allowing me to be

of use to you. I speak honestly, notwithstanding my unjust

letter; I had rather serve you than see you. Here let me finish

this subject: I do not think I shall be faulty to you again.

The Mother Gunning has published her letter to the Duke of

Argyll, and it disappoints every body. It is neither romantic,

nor entertaining, nor abusive, but on the General and Mr. and

Mrs. Bowen, and the General's groom. On the Bowens it is so

immeasurably scurrilous, that I think they must prosecute her.

She accuses them and her husband of a conspiracy to betray and

ruin his own daughter, without, even attempting to assign a

motive to them. Of the House of Argyll she says not a word. In

short, it is a most dull incoherent rhapsody, that gives no

account at all of the story that gave origin to her book, and at

which no mortal could guess from it; and the 246 pages contain

nothing but invectives on her four supposed enemies, and endless

tiresome encomiums on the virtues of her glorious darling, and

the unspottable innocence of that harmless lambkin. I would not

even send it to you if I had an opportunity-you would not have

patience to go through it; and there, I suppose, the absurd

legend will end. I am heartily tired of it. Adieu!

P. S. That ever I should give you two an uneasy moment! Oh!

forgive me: yet I do not deserve pardon in my own eyes: and less

in my own heart.

(758) His correspondents, to settle his mind as to the certainty

of their return at the time they had promised, had assured him,

that no financial difficulties should stand in the way; which is

what he means by sending to Charing-cross (to Drummond his

banker), No such difficulties occurred. The correspondence,

therefore, with Charing-cross never took place-M.B.

Letter 374 To The Miss Berrys.

Berkeley Square, Sunday, March 27, 1791. (page 486)

Though I begin my despatch to-day, I think I shall change my

post-days, as I hinted from Tuesdays to Fridays; not only as more

commodious for learning news for you, but as I do not receive

your letters generally but on Mondays, I have less time to

answer. I have an additional reason for delay this week. Mr.

Pitt has notified that he is to deliver a message from the King

to-morrow, to the House of Commons on the situation of Europe;

and should there be a long debate, I may not gather the

particulars till Tuesday morning, and if my levee lasts late,

shall not have time to write to you. Oh! now are you all

impatience to hear that message: I am sorry to say that I fear it

will be a warlike one. The Autocratrix swears, d-n her eyes! she

will hack her way to Constantinople through the blood of one

hundred thousand more Turks, and that we are very impertinent for

sending her a card with a sprig of olive. On the other hand,

Prussia bounces and buffs and claims our promise of helping him

to make peace by helping him to make war; and so, in the most

charitable and pacific way in the world, we are, they say, to

send twenty ships to the Baltic, and half as many to the Black

Sea,-this little Britain, commonly called Great Britain, is to

dictate to Petersburg and Bengal and cover Constantinople under

those wings that reach from the North Pole to the farthest East!

I am mighty sorry for it, and hope we shall not prove a jackdaw

that pretends to dress himself in the plumes of imperial eagles!

If we bounce abroad, we are more forgiving at home: a gentleman

who lives at the east end of St. James's Park has been sent for

by a lady who has a large house at the west end,(759) and they

have kissed and are friends; which he notified by toasting her

health in a bumper at a club the other day. I know no

circumstances, but am glad of it; I love peace, public or

private: not so the chieftains of the contending theatres of

harmony. Taylor, in wondrous respectful terms and full of

affliction, has printed in the newspapers an advertisement,

declaring that the Marquis's honour the Lord Chamberlain(760) did

in one season, and that an unprofitable one, send orders (you

know, that is tickets of admission without paying) into the

Opera-house, to the loss of the managers of four hundred pounds-

-servants, it is supposed, and Hertfordshire voters eke: and

moreover, that it has been sworn in Chancery that his lordship,

not as lord chamberlain, has stipulated with Gallini and O'Reilly

that he, his heirs and assigns, should preserve the power of

giving those detrimental orders in perpetuity. The immunity is a

little new: former chamberlains, it seems even durante officio,

have not exercised the privilege--if they had it.

One word more of the Gunnings. Captain Bowen informed the

authoress, by the channel of the papers, that he shall prosecute

her for the libel. She answered, by the same conveyance, that

she is extremely glad of it. But there is a difficulty-unless

the prosecution is criminal, it is thought that Madam being femme

couverte, the charge must be brought against her husband; and, to

be sure, it would be droll that the General should be attached

for not hindering his wife from writing a libel, that is more

virulent against him himself than any body! Another little

circumstance has come out: till the other day he did not know

that he had claimed descent from Charlemagne in the newspapers;

which, therefore, is referred to the same manufacture as the

other forgeries. The General said, "It is true I am well born;

but I know no such family in Ireland as the Charlemagnes."

Lord Ossory has just been here, and told me that Gunnilda has

written to Lord Blandford, in her own name and hand, begging his

pardon (for promising herself marriage in his name), but imputing

the first thought to his grandmother, whom she probably inspired

to think of it. This letter the Duchess of Marlborough carried

to the Duchess of Bedford, to open her eyes on her proteg`ee, but

with not much success; for what signify eyes, when the rest of

the head is gone? She only said, "You may be easy, for both

mother and daughter, are gone to France"--no doubt, on finding

her grace's money not so forthcoming as her countenance, and

terrified by Captain Bowen's prosecution and there, I hope, will

terminate that strange story; for in France there is not a

marquis left to marry her. One has heard Of nothing else these

seven months; and it requires some ingenuity to keep up the

attention of such a capital as London for above half a year

together. I supped on Thursday at Mrs. Buller's with the conways

and Mount-Edgcumbes; and the next night at Lady Ailesbury's with

the same company, and Lady Augusta Clavering.(761) You know, on

the famous night at your house when Gunnilda pretended that her

father had received Lord Blandford's appointment of the

wedding-day, we suspected, when they were gone, that we had seen

doubts in Lady Augusta's face, and I desired her uncle, Lord

Frederick, to ask her if we had guessed right; but she protests

she had then no suspicion.

I have determined to send this away on Tuesday, whether I know

the details of the temple of Janus to-morrow in time or not, that

you may give yourself airs of importance, if the Turin ministers

pretend to tell you news of your own country that you do not

know. You may say, your charg`e des affaires sent you word of

the King's message; and you may be mysterious about the rest; for

mystery in the diplomatic dictionary is construed as knowledge,

though, like a Hebrew word, it means the reverse too.

Sunday night.

I have been at White Pussy's(762) this evening. She asked much

after you. I did not think her lord looked as if he would drive

Prince Potemkin out of Bulgaria; but we trust that a new

Frederick of Prussia and a new William Pitt will. Could they lay

Catherine in the Black Sea, as ghosts used to be laid in the Red,

the world would be obliged to them.

(759) The Queen and the Prince of Wales.

(760) The Marquis of Salisbury.

\(761) Eldest daughter of John Duke of Argyle.

(762) Elizabeth Cary, wife of Lord Amherst, at this time

commander-in-chief.

Letter 375 To Miss Berry.

Strawberry Hill, Sunday night, April 3, 1791. (page 488)

Oh! what a shocking accident! Oh! how I detest your going abroad

more than I have done yet in my crossest mood! You escaped the

storm on the 10th of October, that gave me such an alarm; you

passed unhurt through the cannibals of France and their republic

of larrons and poissardes, who terrified me sufficiently; but I

never expected that you would dash yourself to pieces at

Pisa!(763) You say I love truth, and that you have told me the

exact truth: but how can fear believe!

How I hate a party of pleasure! It never turns out well: fools

fall out, and sensible People fall down! Still I thank you a

million of' times for writing yourself. If Miss Agnes had

written for you, I confess I should have been ten times more

alarmed than I am; and yet I am alarmed enough.

Not to torment you more with my fears, when I hope you are almost

recovered, I will answer the rest of your letter. General O'Hara

I have unluckily not met yet. He is so dispersed, and I am so

confined in my resorts and so seldom dine from home, that I have

not seen him, even at General Conway's. When I do, can you

imagine that we shall not talk of you two--yes; and your

accident, I am. sure, will be the chief topic. As our fleets

are to dethrone Catherine Petruchia, O'Hara will probably not be

sent to Siberia. Apropos to Catherine and Petruchio. I supped

with their representatives, Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, t'other

night at Miss Farren's: the Hothams(764) were there too, and Mrs.

Anderson,(765) who treated the players with acting as many

characters as ever they did, particularly Gunnilda and Lady

Clackmannan.(766) Mrs. Siddons is leaner, but looks well: she has

played Jane Shore and Desdemona, and is to play in the Gamester;

all the parts she will act this year. Kemble, they say, shone in

Othello.

Mrs. Damer has been received at Elvas with all military honours,

and a banquet, by order of Mello, formerly ambassador here. It

was handsome in him, but must have distressed her, who is so void

of ostentation and love of show. Miss Boyle,(767) who no more

than Miss Pulteney,(768) has let herself be snapped up by lovers

of her fortune, is going to Italy for a year with Lord and Lady

Malden.(769)

Berkeley Square, Monday after dinner.

Mirabeau is dead;(770) ay, miraculously; for it was of a putrid

fever (that began in his heart). Dr. Price is dying also.(771)

That Mr. Berry, with so much good nature and good sense should be

staggered, I do not wonder. Nobody is more devoted to liberty

than I am. It is therefore that I abhor the National Assembly,

whose outrageous violence has given, I fear, a lasting wound to

the cause; for anarchy is despotism in the hands of thousands. A

lion attacks but when hungry or provoked; but who can live in a

desert full of hyennas?--nobody but Mr. Bruce; and we have only

his word for it. Here is started up another corsair; one Paine,

from America, who has published an answer to Mr. Burke.(7722)

His doctrines go to the extremity of levelling and his style is

so coarse, that you would think he meant to degrade the language

as much as the government: here is one of his delicate

paragraphs:--"We do not want a king, or lords of the bedchamber,

or lords of the kitchen," etc. This rhetoric, I suppose, was

calculated for our poissardes.

(763) Miss Berry had fallen down a bank in the neighbourhood of

Pisa, and received a severe cut on the nose.

(764) Sir Charles Hotham Thompson, married to Lady Dorothy

Hobart, sister of John second Earl of Buckinghamshire.

(765) A daughter of Lady Cecilia Johnstone's, married to a

brother of Charles Anderson Pelham, Lord Garborough.

(766) A nickname, which had been given by the writer to a lady of

the society.

(767)Afterwards married to Lord Henry Fitzgerald.

(768) Afterwards married to Sir James Murray.

(769) Lord Malden, afterwards Earl of Essex, was a first cousin

of Miss Boyle. This journey did not take place.

(770) Mirabeau died on the 2d of April, at the age of forty-two,

a victim to his own debaucheries. His friend, M. Dupont, says of

him, that, "trusting to the strength of his constitution he gave

himself up, without restraint, to every kind of pleasure." Madame

de Stael states, that he suffered cruelly in the last days of his

life, and when no longer able to speak, wrote to his physician

for a dose OF opium, in the words of Hamlet, "to die--to sleep!"

His obsequies were celebrated with great pomp, and his body

placed in the Pantheon, by the side of that of Descartes. In two

short years his ashes were removed, by order of the Convention,

and scattered abroad by the populace; who, at the same time,

burned his bust in the Place de Gr`eve.-E.

(771) Dr. Price died on the 19th of April.-E.

(772) This was the first part of the " Rights of Man," in answer

to the celebrated "Reflections." At the commencement of the year

Paine had published in Paris, under the borrowed name of Achille

Duchatellet, a tract recommending the abolition of royalty.-E.

Letter 376 To Miss Berry.

Berkeley Square, Friday night, April 15, 1791. (page 490)

My preface will be short; for I have nothing to tell, and a great

deal that I am waiting patiently to hear; all which, however, may

be couched in these two phrases,-,, I am quite recovered of my

fall, and my nose will not be the worse for it"--for with all my

pretences, I cannot help having that nose a little upon my

spirits; though if it were flat, I should love it as much as

ever, for the sake of the head and heart that belong to it. I

have seen O'Hara, with his face as ruddy and black, and his teeth

as white as ever; and as fond of you two, and as grieved for your

fall, as any body--but I. He has got a better regiment.

Strawberry Hill, Sunday night, past eleven.

You chose your time ill for going abroad this year: England never

saw such a spring since it was fifteen years old. The warmth,

blossoms, and verdure are unparalleled. I am just come from

Richmond, having first called on Lady Di. who is designing and

painting pictures for prints to Dryden's Fables.(773) Oh! she has

done two most beautiful; one of Emily walking in the garden, and

Palamon seeing her from the tower: the other, a noble, free

composition of Theseus parting the rivals, when fighting in the

wood. They are not, as you will imagine, at all like the

pictures in the Shakspeare Gallery: no; they are -worthy of

Dryden.

I can tell you nothing at all certain with our war with Russia.

If one believes the weather-glass of the stocks, it will be

peace; they had fallen to 71, and are risen again, and soberly,

to 79. Fawkener" clerk of the council, sets out to-day or

to-morrow for Berlin; probably, I hope, with an excuse. In the

present case, I had much rather our ministers were bullies than

heroes: no mortal likes the war. The court-majority lost

thirteen of its former number at the beginning of the week, which

put the Opposition into spirits; but,

put pursuing their motions on Friday, twelve of the thirteen were

recovered.(774) Lord Onslow told me just now, at Madame de

BOufflers's, that Lady Salisbury was brought to bed of a son and

heir(775) last night, two hours after she came from the Opera;

and that Madame du Barry dined yesterday with the Prince of

Wales, at the Duke of Queensberry's, at Richmond. Thus you have

all my news, such as it is ; and I flatter myself no English at

Pisa or Florence can boast of better intelligence than you--but

for you, should I care about Madame du Barry or my Lady

Salisbury, or which of them lies in or lies out?

Berkeley Square, Monday, April 18.

Oh! what a dear letter have I found, and from both at once; and

with such a delightful bulletin! I should not be pleased with

the idleness of the pencil, were it not owing to the chapter of

health, which I prefer to every thing. You order me to be

particular about my own health: I have nothing to say about it,

but that it is as good as before my last fit. Can I expect or

desire more at my age? My ambition is to pass a summer, with you

two established at Cliveden. I shall not reject more if they

come; but one must not be presumptuous at seventy-three; and

though my eyes, ears, teeth, motion, have still lasted to make

life comfortable, I do not know that I should be enchanted if

surviving any of them ; and, having no desire to become a

philosopher, I had rather be naturally cheerful than affectedly

so: for patience I take to be only a resolution of holding one's

tongue, and not complaining of what one feels-for does one feel

or think the less for not owning it?

Though London increases every day, and Mr. Herschell has just

discovered a new square or circus somewhere by the New Road in

.the Via Lactea, where the cows used to be fed, I believe you

will think the town cannot hold all its inhabitants; so

prodigiously the population is augmented. I have twice been

going to stop my coach in Piccadilly, (and the same has happened

to Lady Ailesbury,) thinking there was a mob; and it was only

nymphs and swains sauntering or trudging. T'other morning, i. e.

at two o'clock, I went to see Mrs. Garrick and Miss Hannah More

at the Adelphi, and was stopped five times before I reached

Northumberland-house; for the tides of coaches, chariots,

curricles, phaetons, etc. are endless. Indeed, the town is so

extended, that the breed of chairs is almost lost ; for Hercules

and Atlas could not carry any body from one end of this enormous

capital to the other. How magnified would be the error of the

young woman at St. Helena, who, some said years ago,

to a captain of an Indiaman, "I suppose London is very empty,

when the India ships come out." Don't make Me excuses, then, for

short letters; nor trouble yourself a moment to lengthen them.

YOU Compare little towns to quiet times, which do not feed

history ; and most justly. If the vagaries of' London can be

comprised once a week in three or four pages of small quarto

paper, and not always that, how should little Pisa furnish an

equal export? When Pisa *was at war with the rival republic of

Milan, Machiavel was put to it to describe a battle, the

slaughter in which amounted to one man slain; and he was trampled

to death, by being thrown down and battered in his husk of

complete armour; as I remember reading above fifty years ago at

Florence.

Eleven at night.

Oh! mercy! I am just come from Mrs. Buller's, having left a very

pleasant set at Lady Herries'(776)--and for such a collection

Eight or ten women and girls, not one of whom I knew by sight: a

German Count., as stiff and upright as the inflexible Dowager of

Beaufort: a fat Dean and his wife, he speaking Cornish, and of

having dined to-day at Lambeth; four young officers, friends of

the boy Buller,(777) who played with one of them at tric-trac,

while the others made with the Misses a still more noisy

commerce; and not a creature but Mrs. Cholmondeley, who went away

immediately, and her son, who was speechless with the headache,

that I was the least acquainted with: and, to add to my

sufferings, the Count would talk to me of les beaux arts, of

which he knows no more than an oyster. At last, came in Mrs.

Blair, whom I knew as little; but she asked so kindly after you

two, and was so anxious about your fall and return, that I grew

quite fond of her, and beg you would love her for my sake, as I

do for yours. Good night!

I have this moment received a card from the Duchess-Dowager of

Ancaster, to summon me for to-morrow at three o'clock--I suppose

to sign Lord Cholmondeley's marriage-articles with her

daughter.(778) The wedding is to be this day sevennight. Save

me, my old stars, from wedding-dinners! But I trust they are not

of this age. I should sooner expect Hymen to jump out of a

curricle, and walk into the Duchess's dressing-room in boots and

a dirty shirt.

(773) A splendid edition of the Fables of Dryden, ornamented with

engravings, from the elegant and fascinating pencil of Lady Diana

Beauclerc, was published in folio in 1797.-E.

(774) On the 12th of April, a series of resolutions, moved by Mr.

Grey, the object of which was to pronounce the armament against

Russia inexpedient and unnecessary, were, after a warm debate,

negatived by 252 against 17?- A similar motion, made on the

fifteenth, by Mr. Baker was rejected by a majority of 254 to

162.-E.

(775) James-Brownlow-William Gascoyne Cecil. in 1823, he

succeeded his father as second Marquis of Salisbury.-E.

(776) The wife of the banker in St. James's Street.

(777) Mrs. Buller's only child.

(778) Lady Charlotte Bertie.

Letter 377 To Miss Berry.

Strawberry Hill, April 23, 1791. (page 492)

To-day, when the town is staring at the sudden resignation of the

Duke of Leeds,(779) asking the reason, and gaping to know who

will succeed him, I am come hither -with an indifference that

might pass for philosophy; as the true cause is not known, which

it seldom is. Don't tell Europe; but I really am come to look at

the repairs of Cliveden, and how they go on; not without an eye

to the lilacs and the apple-blossoms: for even self can find a

corner to wriggle into, though friendship may fit out the vessel.

Mr. Berry may, perhaps, wish I had more political curiosity; but

as I must return to town on Monday for Lord Cholmondeley's

wedding, I may hear before the departure of the post, if the

seals are given: for the Duke's reasons, should they be assigned,

shall one be certain? His intention was not even whispered till

Wednesday evening. The news from India, so long expected, are

not couleur de rose, but de sang: a detachment has been defeated

by Tippoo Saib, and Lord Cornwallis is gone to take the command

of the army himself. Will the East be more propitious to him

than the West?

The abolition of the slave-trade has been rejected by the House

of Commons,(780) though Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox united earnestly to

carry it: but commerce chinked its purse, and that sound is

generally prevalent with the majority; and humanity's tears, and

eloquence, figures and arguments, had no more effect than on

those patrons of liberty, the National Assembly of France; who,

while they proclaim the rights of men, did not choose to admit

the sable moiety of mankind to a participation of those benefits.

Captain Bowen has published a little pamphlet of affidavits,

which prove that Gunnilda attempted to bribe her father's groom

to perjure himself; but he begged to be excused. Nothing more

appears against the mother, but that Miss pretended her mamma had

an aversion to Lord Lorn, (an aversion to a Marquis!) and that

she did not dare to acquaint so tender a parent with her lasting

passion for him. Still I am persuaded that both the mother and

the aunt were in the plot, whatever it was. I saw Lady Cecilia

last night, and made all your speeches, and received their value

in return for you.

Good Hannah More is killing herself by a new fit of benevolence,

about a young girl with a great fortune, who has been taken from

school at Bristol to Gretna Green, and cannot be discovered; nor

the apothecary who stole her. Mrs. Garrick, who suspects, as I

do, that Miss Europa is not very angry with Mr. Jupiter, had Very

warm words, a few nights ago, at the Bishop of London's, with

Lady Beaumont; but I diverted the quarrel by starting the stale

story of the Gunning. You know Lady Beaumont's eagerness: she is

ready to hang the apothecary with her own hands; and he certainly

is criminal enough. Poor Hannah lives with attorneys and Sir

Sampson Wright;(781) and I have seen her but once since she came

to town. Her ungrateful proteg`ee, the milkwoman, has published

her tragedy, and dedicated it to a patron as worthy as herself,

the Earl-bishop of Derry.(782)

At night.

Well! our wedding is over very properly, though with little

ceremony; for the men were in frocks and white waistcoats; most

of the women in white, and no diamonds but on the Duke's wife;

and nothing of ancient fashion but two bride-maids. The endowing

purse I believe, has been left off, ever since broad-pieces were

called in and melted down. We were but eighteen persons in all,

chiefly near relations of each side; and of each side a friend or

two: of the first sort, the Greatheds. Sir Peter Burrell gave

away the bride. The poor Duchess-mother wept excessively: She is

now left quite alone; her two daughters married, and her other

children dead; she herself, I fear, in a very dangerous way. She

goes directly to Spa, where the new-married are to meet her. We

all separated in an hour and a half. The Elliot-girl(783) was

there, and is pretty: she rolls in the numerous list of my

nephews and nieces.

I am now told that our Indian skirmish was a victory, and that

Tippoo Saib and all his cavalry and elephants, ran away; but sure

I am, that the first impression made on me by those who spread

the news, was not triumphant; nor can I enjoy success in that

country, which we have so abominably usurped and plundered. You

must wait for a new secretary of state till next post. The Duke

of Leeds is said to have resigned from bad health. The Ducs de

Richelieu(784) and De Pienne, and Madame de St. Priest, are

arrived here. Mr. Fawkener does not go to Berlin till Wednesday

* still the stocks do not believe in the war.

I have exhausted my gazette; and this being both Easter and

Newmarket week, I may possibly have nothing to tell you by

to-morrow se'nnight's post, and may wait till Friday se'nnight:

of which I give you notice, lest you should think I have had a

fall, and hurt my nose which I know gives one's friend a dreadful

alarm. Good night!

P. S. I never saw such a blotted letter: I don't know how you

will read it. I am so earnest when writing to YOU two, that I

omit half the words, and write too small; but I will try to mend.

(779) Francis Godolphin Osborne, fifth Duke of Leeds. In 1776,

he was appointed a lord of the bedchamber, and in 1783, secretary

of state for foreign affairs. He was succeeded in the office by

Lord Grenville.-E.

(780) The numbers on the division were, for the abolition 88,

against it 163.-E.

(781) In a letter written on this day, Miss More says,--"My time

has been literally passed with thief takers, officers of justice,

and such pretty kind of people." The young lady, who was an

heiress and only fourteen years of age, had been trepanned away

from school. All the efforts to discover the victim proved

fruitless; the poor girl having been betrayed into a marriage and

carried to the Continent.-E.

(782) The Earl of Bristol; for an account of whom, see ante, p.

236, letter 182.-E.

(783) A natural daughter of Lord Cholmondeley.

(784) Armand-Emanuel du Plessis, Duc do Richelieu. He had just

succeeded to the title, by the death of his father. In the

preceding year, he had entered a volunteer into the service of

Catherine the Second, and distinguished himself at the siege of

Ismael, not more by his bravery than his humanity; as appears by

the following anecdote recorded in the "Histoire de la Nouvelle

Russie," tom. iii. p. 217:--"Je sauvai la vie `a une fille de dix

ans, dont l'innocence et la candeur formaient un contraste bien

frappant avec la rage de tout ce qui mlenvironnait. En arrivant

sur le bastion o`u commen`ca le carnage, j'apperus un groupe de

quatre femmes `egorg`ees, entre lesquelles cet enfant, d'une

figure charmante, cherchait un asile contre la fureur de deux

Kosaks qui `etaient sur le point de la massacrer: ce spectacle

m'attira bient`ot, et je n'h`esitai pas, comme on peut le croire,

prendre entre mes bras cette infortun`ee, que les barbares

voulaient y poursuivre encore." Lord Byron has paraphrased the

affecting incident in the eighth canto of Don Juan:--

"Upon a taken bastion, where there lay

Thousands of slaughter'd men, a yet warm group

Of murder'd women, who had found their way

To this vain refuge, made the good heart droop

And shudder;--while, as beautiful as May,

A female child of ten years tried to stoop

And hide her little palpitating breast

Amidst the bodies lull'd in bloody rest.

Two villainous Cossacques pursued the child

With flashing eyes, and weapons. * * *

Don Juan raised his little captive from

The heap, a moment more had made her tomb."

In 1803, the Duke returned to Russia, and was nominated civil and

military governor of Odessa; -and to his administration," says

Bishop Heber, 44 and not to any natural advantages, the town owes

its prosperity." On the restoration of Louis the Eighteenth, he

was appointed first gentleman of the bedchamber; and in 1815,

president of the council and minister for foreign affairs. He

finally retired from office in 1820, and died in 1822.-E.

Letter 378 To Miss Berry.

Berkeley Square, May 12, 1791. (page 495)

A letter from Florence (that of April 20th) does satisfy me about

your nose-till I can see it with my own eyes; but I will own to

you now, that my alarm at first went much farther. I dreaded

lest so violent a fall upon rubbish might not have hurt your

head; though all your letters since have proved how totally that

escaped any danger. Yet your great kindness in writing to me

yourself so immediately did not tranquillize me, and only proved

your good-nature-but I will not detail my departed fears, nor

need I prove my attachment to you two. If you were really my

wives, I could not be more generally applied to for accounts of

you; of which I am proud. I should be ashamed, if, at my age, it

were a ridiculous attachment; but don't be sorry for having been

circumstantial. My fears did not spring thence; nor did I

suspect your not having told the whole-no; but I apprehended the

accident might be worse than you knew yourself.

Poor Hugh Conway,(785) though his life has long been safe, still

suffers at times from his dreadful blow, and has not yet been

able to come to town: nor would Lord Chatham's humanity put his

ship into commission; which made him so unhappy, that poor

Horatia,(786) doating on him as she does, wrote to beg he might

be employed; preferring her own misery in parting with him to

what she saw him suffer. Amiable conduct! but, happily, her suit

did not prevail.

I am not at all surprised at the private interviews between

Leopold(787) and C. I am persuaded that the first must and will

take more part than he has yet seemed to do, and so will others

too; but as speculations are but guesses, I will say no more on

the subject now; nor of your English and Irish travellers, none

of whom I know. I have one general wish, that you may be amused

while you stay, by the natives of any nation: and I thank you a

thousand times for confirming Your intention of returning by the

beginning of November; which I should not desire coolly, but from

the earnest wish of putting you in possession of Cliveden while I

live; which every body would approve, at least, not wonder at

(Mr. Batt, to whom I have communicated my intention, does

extremely); and the rest would follow of course, as I had done

the same for Mrs. Clive. I smiled at your making excuses for

your double letter. Do you think I would not give twelvepence to

hear more of you and your proceedings, than a single sheet would

contain?

The Prince is recovered; that is all the domestic news, except a

most memorable debate last Friday, in the House of Commons. Mr.

Fox had most imprudently thrown out a panegyric on the French

revolution.(788) His most considerable friends were much hurt,

and protested to him against such sentiments. Burke went much

farther, and vowed to attack these opinions. Great pains were

taken to prevent such altercation, and the Prince of Wales is

said to have written a dissuasive letter to Burke: but he was

immovable; and on Friday, on the Quebec Bill, he broke out and

sounded a trumpet against the plot, which he denounced as

carrying on here. Prodigious clamours and interruption arose

from Mr. Fox's friends: but he, though still applauding the

French, burst into tears and lamentations on the loss of Burke's

friendship, and endeavoured to make atonement; but in vain,

though Burke wept too. In short, it was the most affecting scene

possible; and undoubtedly an unique one, for both the commanders

were earnest and sincere.(789) Yesterday, a second act was

expected; but mutual friends prevailed, that the contest should

not be renewed: nay, on the same bill, Mr. Fox made a profession

of his faith, and declared he would venture his life in support

of the present constitution by King, Lords, and Commons. In

short, I never knew a wiser dissertation, if the newspapers

deliver it justly; and I think all the writers in England cannot

give more profound sense to Mr. Fox than he possesses. I know no

more particulars, having seen nobody this morning yet. What

shall I tell you else? We have expected Mrs. Damer from last

night; and perhaps she may arrive before this sets out to-morrow.

Friday morning, May 13th.

Last night we were at Lady Frederick Campbell's,--the usual

cribbage party, Conways, Mount-Edgcumbes, Johnstones. At past

ten Mrs. Damer was announced! Her parents ran down into the

hall, and I scrambled down some of the stairs. She looks vastly

well, was in great spirits, and not at all fatigued; though she

came from Dover, had been twelve hours at sea from Calais, and

had rested but four days at Paris from Madrid. We supped, and

stayed till one o'clock; and I shall go to see her as soon as I

am dressed. Madrid and the Escurial she owns have gained her a

proselyte to painting, which her statuarism had totally engrossed

in her, no wonder. Of Titian she had no idea, nor have I a just

one, though great faith, as at Venice all his works are now

coal-black: but Rubens, she says, amazed her, and that in Spain

he has even grace. Her father, yesterday morning, from pain

remaining still in his shoulder from his fall, had it examined by

Dr. Hunter, and a little bone of the collar was found to be

broken, and he must wear his arm for some time in a sling. Miss

Boyle, I heard last night, had consented to marry Lord Henry

Fitzgerald. I think they have both chosen well--but I have

chosen better. Adieu! Care spose!

(785) Lord Hugh Seymour Conway, brother of the then Marquis of

Hertford.

(786) Lady Horatia Waldegrave, his wife.

(787) The Emperor Leopold, then at Florence; whither he had

returned from Vienna, to inaugurate his son in the Grand Duchy of

Tuscany.-E.

(788) In the course of his speech on the 15th of April, during

the debate on the armament against Russia, Mr. Fox had said, that

"he for one admired the new constitution of France, considered

altogether, as the most stupendous and glorious edifice of

liberty which had been erected on the foundation of human

integrity in any time or country." As soon as he had sat down

Mr. Burke rose, in much visible emotion; but was prevented from

proceeding by the general cry of question. Mr. Fox regretted the

injudicious zeal of those who would not suffer him to reply on

the spot: "the contention," be said, "might have been fiercer and

hotter, but the remembrance of it would not have settled so deep,

nor rankled so long, in the heart."-E.

(789) With the debate of this day terminated a friendship which

had lasted more than the fourth part of a century. Mr.

Wilberforce, in his Diary of the 6th of May, states, that he had

endeavoured to prevent the quarrel; and in a letter to a friend,

on the following day, he speaks of "the shameful spectacle of

last night; more disgraceful almost, and more affecting, than the

rejection of my motion for the abolition of the slave trade-a

long tried and close worldly connexion of five-and-twenty years

trampled to pieces in the conflict of a single night!" The

following anecdote, connected with this memorable evening, is

related by Mr. Curwen, at that time member for Carlisle, in his

Travels in Ireland:--"the powerful feelings were manifested on

the adjournment of the House. While I was waiting for my

carriage, Mr. Burke came to me and requested, as the night was

wet, I would set him down. As soon as the carriage-door was

shut, he complimented me on My being no friend to the

revolutionary doctrines of the French; on which he spoke with

great warmth for a few minutes, when he paused to afford me an

opportunity of approving the view he had taken of those measures

in the House. At the moment I could not help feeling disinclined

to disguise my sentiments: Mr. Burke, catching hold of the

check-string, furiously exclaimed, 'you are one of these people!

set me down!' With some difficulty I restrained him;-we had then

reached Charingcross: a silence ensued which was preserved till

we reached his house in Gerard-street, when he hurried out of the

carriage without speaking."-E.

Letter 379 To Miss Berry.

Berkeley Square, Thursday, May 19, 1791. (page 497)

Your letter of the 29th, for which you are so good as to make

excuses on not sending it to the post in time, did arrive but two

days later than usual; and as it is now two months from the 16th

of March, and I have so many certificates of the prosperous state

of your pretty nose, I attributed the delay to the elements, and

took no panic. But how kindly punctual you are, When you charge

yourself' with an irregularity of two days! and when your letters

are so charmingly long, and interest me so much in all you do!

But make no more excuses. I reproach myself with occasioning so

much waste of your time, that you might employ every hour; for it

is impossible to see all that the Medicis had collected or

encouraged in the loveliest little city, and in such beautiful

environs-nor had I forgotten the Cascines, the only spot

containing English verdure. Mrs. Damer is as well, if not

better, than she has been a great while: her looks surprise every

body; to which, as she is tanned, her Spanish complexion

contributes. She and I called, the night before last, on your

friend Mrs. Cholmeley; and they are to make me a visit to-morrow

morning, by their own appointment. At Dover Mrs. Damer heard the

Gunnings are there: here, they are forgotten.

You are learning perspective, to take views: I am glad. Can one

have too many resources in one's self? Internal armour is more

necessary to your sex, than weapons to ours. You have neither

professions, nor politics, nor ways of getting money, like men;

in any of which, whether successful or not, they are employed.

Scandal and cards you will both always hate and despise, as much

as you do now; and though I shall not flatter Mary so much as to

suppose she will ever equal the extraordinary talent of Agnes in

painting, yet, as Mary, like the scriptural Martha, is occupied

in many things, she is quite in the right to add the pencil to

her other amusements.

I knew the Duchesse de Brissac(790) a little, and but a little,

in 1766. She was lively and seemed sensible, and had an

excellent character. Poor M. de Thygnols!(791) to be deprived of

that only remaining child too!--but, how many French one pities,

and how many more one abhors! How dearly will even liberty be

bought, (if it shall prove to be obtained, which I neither think

it is or will be,) by every kind of injustice and violation of

consciences! How little conscience can they have, who leave to

others no option but between perjury and starving! The Prince de

Chimay I do not know.

After answering the articles of yours, I shall add what I can of

new. After several weeks spent in search of precedents, for

trials ceasing or not on a dissolution of parliament, the Peers

on Monday sat till three in the morning on the report; when the

Chancellor and Lord Hawkesbury fought for the cessation, but were

beaten by a large majority; which showed that Mr. Pitt(792) has

more weight (at present) in that House too, than--the diamonds of

Bengal. Lord Hawkesbury protested. The trial recommences on

Monday next, and has already caused the public fourteen thousand

pounds; the accused, I suppose, much more.

The Countess of Albany(793) is not only in England, in London,

but at this very moment, I believe, in the palace of St.

James's--not restored by as rapid a revolution as the French,

but, as was observed last night at supper at Lady

Mount-Edgcumbe's, by that topsy-turvyhood that characterizes the

present age. Within these two months the Pope has been burnt at

Paris; Madame du Barry, mistress of Louis Quinze, has dined with

the Lord Mayor of London, and the Pretender's widow is presented

to the Queen of Great Britain! She is to be introduced by her

great-grandfather's niece, the young Countess of Ailesbury.(794)

That curiosity should bring her hither, I do not quite

wonder-still less that she abhorred her husband; but methinks it

is not very well bred to his family, nor very sensible; but a new

way of passing eldest.

Apropos: I hear there is a medal struck at Rome of her brother-

in-law, as Henry the Ninth; which, as one of their Papal

majesties was so abominably mean as to deny the royal title to

his brother, though for Rome he had lost a crown, I did not know

they allow his brother to assume. I should be much obliged to

you if you could get one of those medals in copper; ay, and of

his brother, if there was one with the royal title. I have the

father's and mother's, and all the Popes', in copper; but my

Pope, Benedict the Fourteenth, is the last, and therefore I

should be glad of one of each of his successors, if you can

procure and bring them with little trouble. I should not be

sorry to have one of the Grand Duke and his father; but they

should be in copper, not only for my suite, but they are sharper

than in silver.

Thursday night.

Well! I have had an exact account of the interview of the two

Queens, from one who stood close to them. The dowager was

announced as Princess of Stolberg. She was well-dressed, and not

at all embarrassed. The King talked to her a good deal; but

about her passage' the sea, and general topics: the Queen in the

same way, but less. Then she stood between the Dukes of

Gloucester and Clarence, and had a good deal of conversation with

the former; who, perhaps, may have met her in Italy. Not a word

between her and the Princesses: nor did I hear of the Prince, but

he was there, and probably spoke to her. The Queen looked at her

earnestly. To add to the singularity of the day, it is the

Queen's birthday. Another odd accident: at the Opera at the

Pantheon, Madame d'Albany was carried into the King's box, and

sat there. It is not of a piece with her going to court, that

she seals with the royal arms. I have been told to-night, that

you will not be able to get me a medal of the royal Cardinal, as

very few were struck, and only for presents; so pray give

yourself but little trouble about it.

Boswell has at last published his long-promised Life of Dr.

Johnson, in two volumes in quarto. I will give you an account of

it when I have gone through it. I have already perceived, that

in writing the history of Hudibras, Ralpho has not forgot himself

nor will others, I believe, forget him!

(790) The Duc do Brissac was at this time commandant-general of

Louis the Sixteenth's constitutional guard. In the following

year he was denounced; and in the early days of September put to

death at Versailles, for his attachment to his unfortunate

sovereign.-E.

(791) The Duc de Nivernois, who, at this time, was employed about

the person of Louis the Sixteenth, was denounced by the infamous

Chaumette, and Cast into prison in September 1793; where he

remained till 1796. He died in 1798.-E.

(792) In Mr. Wilberforce's Diary of the 22d of December, there is

the following entry:--"Hastings's impeachment question. Pitt's

astonishing speech. This was almost the finest speech he ever

delivered: it was one which you would say at once he never could

have made if he had not been a mathematician. He put things by

as he proceeded and then returned to the very point from which he

had started, with the most astonishing clearness. He had all the

lawyers against him, but carried a majority of the House, mainly

by the force of this speech. It pleased Burke exceedingly.

'Sir,' he said, 'the right honourable gentleman and I have often

been opposed to one another, but his speech tonight has

neutralized my opposition; nay, Sir, he has dulcified me.' "

Life, vol. i. p. 286.-E.

(793) Louisa Maximiliana de Stolberg Goedern, wife of the

Pretender. After the death of Charles Edward in 1788, she

travelled in Italy and France, and lived with her favourite, the

celebrated Alfieri, to whom she is stated to have been privately

married. She continued to reside at Paris, until the progress of

the revolution compelled her to take refuge in England.-E.

(794) Lady Anne Rawdon, sister to the first Marquis of Hastings.

Letter 380 To Miss Berry.

Berkeley Square, May 26, 1791. (page 500)

I am rich in letters from you: I received that by Lord Elgin's

courier first, as you expected, and its elder the next day. You

tell me mine entertain you; tant mieux. It is my wish, but my

wonder; for I live so little in the world, that I do not know the

present generation by sight: for, though I pass by them in the

streets, the hats with valences, the folds above the chin of the

ladies, and the dirty shirts and shaggy hair of the young men,

who have levelled nobility almost as much as the mobility in

France have, have confounded all individuality. Besides, if I

did go to public places and assemblies, which my going to roost

earlier prevents, the bats and owls do not begin to fly abroad

till far in the night, when they begin to see and be seen.

However, one of the empresses of fashion, the Duchess of Gordon,

uses fifteen or sixteen hours of her four-and-twenty. I heard

her journal of last Monday. She first went to Handel's music in

the Abbey; she then clambered over the benches, and went to

Hastings's trial in the Hall; after dinner to the play; then to

Lady Lucan's assembly; after that to Ranelagh, and returned to

Mrs. Hobart's faro table; gave a ball herself in the evening of

that morning, into which she must have got a good way: and set

out for Scotland the next day. Hercules could not have achieved

a quarter of her labours in the same space of time, What will the

Great Duke think of our Amazons, if he has letters opened, as the

Emperor was wont! One of our Camillas,(795) but in a freer

style, I hear, he saw (I fancy just before your arrival); and he

must have wondered at the familiarity of the dame, and the

nincompoophood of her Prince. Sir William Hamilton is arrived--

his Nymph of the Attitudes!(796) was too prudish to visit the

rambling peeress.

The rest of my letter must be literary; for we have no news.

Boswell's book is gossiping;(797) but, having numbers of proper

names, would be more readable, at least by me, were it reduced

from two volumes to one; but there are woful longueurs, both

about his hero and himself; thefidus Achates; about whom one has

not the smallest curiosity. But I wrong the original Achates:

one is satisfied with his fidelity in keeping his master's

secrets and weaknesses, which modern led-captains betray for

their patron's glory, and to hurt their own enemies; which

Boswell has done shamefully, particularly against Mrs. Piozzi,

and Mrs. Montagu, and Bishop Percy. Dr. Blagden says justly,

that it is a new kind of libel, by which you may abuse any body,

by saying some dead body said so and so of somebody

alive. Often, indeed, Johnson made the most brutal speeches to

living persons; for though he was good-natured at bottom, he was

very ill-natured at top. He loved to dispute, to show his

superiority. If his opponents were weak, he told them they were

fools; if they vanquished him, be was scurrilous--to nobody more

than to Boswell himself, who was contemptible for flattering him

so grossly, and for enduring the coarse things he was continually

vomiting on Boswell's own country, Scotland. I expected, amongst

the excommunicated, to find myself, but am very gently treated.

I never would be in the least acquainted with Johnson; or, as

Boswell calls it, I had not a just value for him; which the

biographer imputes to my resentment for the Doctor's putting bad

arguments (purposely, out of Jacobitism,) into the speeches which

he wrote fifty years ago for my father, in the Gentleman's

Magazine; which I did not read then, or ever knew

Johnson wrote till Johnson died, nor have looked at since.

Johnson's blind Toryism and known brutality kept me aloof; nor

did I ever exchange a syllable with him: nay, I do not think I

ever was in a room with him six times in my days. Boswell came

to me, said Dr. Johnson was writing the Lives of the Poets, and

wished I would give him anecdotes of Mr. Gray. I said, very

coldly, I had given what I knew to Mr. Mason. Boswell hummed and

hawed, and then dropped, "I suppose you know Dr. Johnson does not

admire Mr. Gray." Putting as much contempt as I could Into my

look and tone, I said, "Dr. Johnson don't--humph!"--and with that

monosyllable ended our interview. After the Doctor's death,

Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Boswell sent an ambling

circular-letter to me, begging subscriptions for a monument for

him--the two last, I think, impertinently; as they could not but

know my opinion, and could not suppose I would contribute to a

monument for one who had endeavoured, poor soul! to degrade my

friend's superlative poetry. I would not deign to write an

answer; but sent down word by my footman, as I would have done to

parish officers with a brief, that I Would not subscribe. In the

two new volumes Johnson says, and very probably did, or is made

to say, that 'Gray's poetry is dull, and that he was a dull

man!(798) The same oracle dislikes Prior, Swift, and Fielding.

If an elephant could write a book, perhaps one that had read a

great deal would say, that an Arabian horse is a very clumsy

ungraceful animal. Pass to a better chapter!

Burke has published another pamphlet(799) against the French

Revolution, in which he attacks it still more grievously. The

beginning is very good; but it is not equal, nor quite so

injudicious as parts of its predecessor; is far less brilliant,

as well as much shorter: but, were it ever so long, his mind

overflows with such a torrent of images, that he cannot be

tedious. His invective against Rousseau is admirable, just, and

new.(799) Voltaire he passes almost contemptuously. I wish he

had dissected Mirabeau too; and I grieve that he has omitted the

violation of the consciences of the clergy, nor stigmatized those

universal plunderers, the National Assembly, who gorge themselves

with eighteen livres a-day; which to many of them would, three

years ago, have been astonishing opulence.

When you return, I shall lend you three volumes in quarto of

another Work,(800) With which you will be delighted. They are

state-letters in the reigns of Henry the Eighth, Mary, Elizabeth,

and James; being the correspondence of the Talbot and Howard

families, given by a Duke of Norfolk to the Herald's-office;

where they have lain for a century neglected, buried under dust,

and unknown, till discovered by a Mr. Lodge, a genealogist, who,

to gratify his passion, procured to be made a poursuivant. Oh!

how curious they are! Henry seizes an alderman who refused to

contribute to a benevolence: sends him to the army on the

borders; orders him to be exposed in the front line; and if that

does not do, to be treated with the utmost rigour of military

discipline. His daughter Bess is not less a Tudor. The mean,

unworthy treatment of the queen of Scots is striking; and you

will find Elizabeth's jealousy of her crown and her avarice were

at war, and how the more ignoble passion predominated. But the

most amusing passage is one in a private letter, as it paints the

awe of children for their parents a little differently from

modern habitudes. Mr. Talbot, second son of the Earl of

Shrewsbury, was a member of the House of Commons, and was

married. He writes to the Earl his father, and tells him, that a

young woman of a very good character, has been recommended to him

for chambermaid to his wife, and if his lordship does not

disapprove of it, he will hire her. There are many letters of

news, that are very entertaining too--but it is nine o'clock, and

I must go to Lady Cecilia's.

Friday.

The Conways, Mrs. Damer, the Farrens, and Lord Mount-Edgcumbe

supped at the Johnstones'. Lord Mount-Edgcumbe said excellently,

that "Mademoiselle D'Eon is her own widow." I wish I had seen

you both in your court-plis, at your presentation; but that is

only one wish amongst a thousand.

(795) Lady Craven; who was at this time in Italy with the

Margravine of Anspach. Lord Craven died at Lausanne in

September, and the lady was married to the Margrave in October

following.-E.

(796) Miss Martel married, in the following September, to Sir

William Hamilton-the lady, the infatuated attachment to whom has

been said to have been "the only cloud that obscured the bright

fame Of the immortal Nelson." By the following passage in a

letter, written by Romney the painter to Hagley the poet on the

19th of June, it will be seen that she had not been many days in

England, before a warm passion for her was engendered in the

breast of the artist:--"At present, and for the greatest part of

the summer, I shall be engaged in painting pictures from the

divine lady: I cannot give her any other epithet; for I think her

superior to all womankind. She asked me if you would not write

my life: I told her you had begun it-then, she said, she hoped

you would have much to say of her in the life; as she prides

herself in being my model."-E.

(797) On the first appearance of his most interesting and

instructive Life of Dr. Johnson, a considerable outcry was raised

against poor Boswell. On the subject of this outcry, Mr. Croker

in the introduction to his valuable edition of the work,

published in 1831, makes the following excellent observations:--

"Whatever doubts may have existed as to the prudence or the

propriety of the original publication--however naturally private

confidence was alarmed, or individual vanity offended--the voices

of criticism and complaint were soon drowned in the general

applause. And, no wonder; the work combines within itself the

four most entertaining classes of writing--biography, memoirs,

familiar letters, and that assemblage of literary anecdotes,

which the French have taught us to distinguish by the termination

Ana. It was a strange and fortuitous concurrence, that one so

prone to talk, and who talked so well, should be brought into

such close contact and confidence with one so zealous and so able

to record. Dr. Johnson was a man of extraordinary powers; but

Mr. Boswell had qualities, in their own way, almost as rare. He

United lively manners with indefatigable diligence, and the

volatile curiosity of a man about town with the drudging patience

of a chronicler. With a very good opinion of himself, he was

quick in discerning, and frank in applauding the excellencies of

others. His contemporaries, indeed, not without some colour of

reason, occasionally complained of him as vain, troublesome, and

giddy; but his vanity was inoffensive--his curiosity was commonly

directed towards laudable objects--when he meddled, be did so,

generally, from good-natured motives--and his giddiness was only

an exuberant gaiety, which never failed in the respect and

reverence due to literature, morals, and religion' ' and

posterity grate taste, temper, and talents with which he

selected, enjoyed, and described that polished intellectual

society which still lives in his work, and without his work had

perished!" Mr. Croker's edition of the work is the eleventh; and

since its appearance, a twelfth, in ten pocket volumes, with

embellishments has been given to the world, by Mr. Murray, of

which thousands are understood to have been called for. Whenever

Walpole, in the course of his correspondence, has had occasion to

introduce the name of Boswell, he has uniformly spoken so

disparagingly of him, that it is but justice to his memory to

append to the above extract, a passage or two, in which other

writers have recorded their estimation of him. Mr. Burke told

Sir James Mackintosh, that "he thought Johnson appeared greater

in Boswell's volumes than even in his own." Sir Walter Scott,

speaking of the Doctor, says, "he yet is, in our mind's eye, a

personification as lively as that of Siddons in Lady Macbeth, or

Kemble in Cardinal Wolsey; and all this arises from his having

found in Boswell such a biographer as no man but himself ever

had." In the opinion of the Edinburgh Reviewers, Boswell was "the

very prince of retail wits and philosophers," and his Life of

Johnson is pronounced to be "one of the best books in the world--

a great, a very great work;" while the quarterly Review considers

it "the richest dictionary of wit and wisdom, any language can

boast, and that to the influence of Boswell we owe, probably,

three-fourths of what is most entertaining, as well as no

inconsiderable portion of whatever is most instructive, in all

the books of memoirs that have subsequently appeared."-E.

(797) Dr. Johnson's attack upon Gray was undoubtedly calculated

to give great offence to Walpole: "Sir, he was dull in company,

dull in his closet, dull every where: he was dull in a new way,

and that made many people think him great: he was a mechanical

poet."-E.

(798) This was the "Letter from Mr. Burke to a member of the

National Assembly."-E.

(799) "We have had," says Mr. Burke, "the great professor and

founder of the philosophy of vanity in England. As I had good

opportunities of knowing his proceedings, almost from day to day,

he left no doubt on my mind that he entertained no principle,

either to influence his heart or to guide his understanding, but

vanity; with this vice he was possessed to a degree little short

of madness. Benevolence to the whole species, and want of

feeling for every individual with whom the professors come in

contact, form the character of the new philosophy. Setting up

for an unsocial independence, this their hero of vanity refuses

the just price of common labour, as well as the tribute which

opulence owes to genius, and which when paid, honours the giver

and the receiver: and then he pleads his beggary as an excuse for

his crimes. He melts with tenderness for those only who touch

him by the remotest relation; and then, without one natural pang,

casts away as a sort of offal and excrement, the spawn of his

disgustful amours, and sends his children to the hospital of

foundlings. The bear loves, licks, and forms her young; but

bears are not philosophers."-E.

(800) This was Lodge's "Illustrations of British History,

Biography, and Manners, in the Reigns of Henry the Eighth, Edward

the Sixth, Mary, Elizabeth and James the First;" a work which has

also been highly praised by Mr. Gifford, Sir Walter Scott, Sir

Egerton Brydges, Mr. Park, and others.-E.

Letter 381 To The Miss Berrys.

Berkeley Square, June 2, 1791. (page 504)

To the tune of the Cow with the crumpled Horn, etc.

"This is the note that nobody wrote."

"

This is the groom that carried the note that nobody wrote.

"This is Ma'am Gunning, Who was so very cunning, to examine the

groom that carried the note that nobody wrote.

"This is Ma'am Bowen, to whom it was owing,

that Miss Minify Gunning was so very cunning, to examine the

groom that carried the note that nobody wrote.

"These are the Marquisses shy of the horn, who caused the maiden

all for-Lorn, to become on a sudden so tattered and torn, that

Miss Minify Gunning was so very cunning, to examine the groom,

etc.

"These are the two Dukes, whose sharp rebukes made the two

Marquesses shy of the horn, and caused the maiden all for-Lorn,

etc.

"This is the General somewhat too bold, whose head was so hot,

though his heart was so cold; who proclaimed himself single

before it was meet, and his wife and his daughter turned into the

street, to please the Dukes, whose sharp rebukes," etc.

This is not at all new; I have heard it once or twice

imperfectly, but could not get a copy till now; and I think it

will divert you for a moment, though the heroines are as much

forgotten as Boadicea; nor have I heard of them since their

arrival at Dover.

Well! I have seen Madame d'Albany who has not a ray of royalty

about her. She has good eyes and teeth; but I think can have had

no more beauty than remains, except youth. She is civil and

easy, but German and ordinary. Lady Ailesbury made a small

assemblage for her on Monday, and my curiosity is satisfied. Mr.

Conway and Lady A., Lord and Lady Frederic Campbell, and Mrs. E.

Hervey and Mrs. Hervey, breakfasted with me that morning at

Strawberry, at the desire of the latter, who had never been

there; and whose commendations were so promiscuous, that I saw

she did not at all understand the style of the place. The day

was northeasterly and cold, and wanting rain; and I was not sorry

to return into town. I hope in five months to like staying there

much better. Mrs. Damer, who returned in such Spanish health,

has already caught an English northeastern cold; with pain in all

her limbs, and a little fever, and yesterday was not above two

hours out of her bed. Her father came to me from her before

dinner, and left her better; and I shall go to her presently;

and, this not departing till to-morrow, I hope to give you a

still more favourable account. These two days may boldly assume

the name of June, without the courtesy of England. Such weather

makes me wish myself at Strawberry, whither I shall betake myself

on Saturday.

505 Letter 382

To The Miss Berrys.

Berkeley Square, June 8, 1791.

Your No. 34, that was interrupted, and of which the last date

was of May 24th, I received on the 6th, and if I could find

fault, it would be in the length; for I do not approve of your

writing so much in hot weather, for, be it known to you ladies,

that from the first of the month, June is not more June at

Florence, My hay is crumbling away; and I have ordered it to be

cut, as a sure way of bringing rain. I have a selfish reason,

too, for remonstrating against long letters. I feel the season

advancing, when mine will be piteous short for what can I tell

you from Twickenham in the next three or four months'! Scandal

from Richmond and Hampton Court, or robberies at my own door?

The latter, indeed, are blown already. I went to Strawberry on

Saturday, to avoid the birthday crowd and squibs and crackers.

At six I drove to Lord Strafford's, where his goods are to be

sold by auction; his sister, Lady Anne,(801) intending to pull

down the house and rebuild it. I returned a quarter before

seven; and in the interim between my Gothic gate and Ashe's

nursery, a gentleman and gentlewoman, in a one-horse chair and

in the broad face of the sun, had been robbed by a single

highwayman, sans mask. Ashe's mother and sister stood and saw

it; but having no notion of a robbery at such an hour in the

high-road and before their men had left work, concluded it was

an acquaintance of the robber's. I suppose Lady Cecilia

Johnstone will not descend from her bedchamber to the

drawing-room without life-guard men. The Duke of Bedford(802)

eclipsed the whole birthday by his clothes, equipage, and

servants - six of the latter walked on' the side of the coach

to keep off the crowd-or to tempt it; for their liveries were

worth an argosie. The Prince *as gorgeous too - the latter is

to give Madame d'Albany a dinner. She has been introduced to

Mrs. Fitzherbert. You know I used to call Mrs. Cosway's(803)

concerts Charon's boat; now, methinks, London is so. I am glad

Mrs. C. is with you; she is pleasing-but surely it is odd to

drop a child and her husband and country, all in a breath! I am

glad you are disfranchised of the exiles. We have several, I

am told, hire; but I strictly confine myself to those I knew

formerly at Paris, and who all are quartered on Richmond Green.

I went to them on Sunday evening, but found them gone to Lord

Fitzwilliam's, the next house to Madame de Boufflers', to hear

his organ; whither I followed them, and returned with them.

The Comtesse Emilie played on her harp; then we all united at

loto. I went home at twelve, unrobbed; and Lord Fitzwilliam,

who asked much after you both, was to set out the next morning

for Dublin, though intending to stay there but four days, and

be back in three weeks.

I am sorry you did not hear all Monsieur do Lally

Tollendal's(804) tragedy, of which I have had a good account.

I like his tribute to his father's memory.(805) Of French

politics you must be tired; and so am I. Nothing appears to me

to promise their chaos duration; consequently, I expect more

chaos, the sediment of which is commonly despotism. Poland

ought to make the French blush-but that, they are not apt to do

on any occasion. Let us return to Strawberry. The house of

Sebright breakfasted there with me on Monday; the daughter had

given me a drawing, and I owed her a civility. Thank you for

reminding me of falls: in one sense I am more liable to them

than when you left me, for I am sensibly much weaker since my

last fit; but that weakness makes me move much slower, and

depend more on assistance. In a word, there is no care I do

not take of myself: my heart is set on installing you at

Cliveden; and it will not be my fault if I do not preserve

myself till then. If another summer is added, it will be

happiness indeed--but I am not presumptuous, and count the days

only till November. I am glad you, on your parts, repose till

your journey commences, and go not into sultry crowded lodgings

at the Ascension. I was at Venice in summer, and thought

airing on stinking ditches pestilential, after enjoying the

delicious nights on the Ponte di Trinit`a at Florence, in a

linen night-gown and a straw hat, with improvisatori. and

music, and the coffee-houses open with ices--at least, such

were the customs fifty years ago,.

The Duke of St. Albans has cut down all the brave old trees at

Hanworth, and consequently reduced his park to what it issued

from Hounslow-heath: nay, he has hired a meadow next to mine,

for the benefit of embarkation; and there lie all the good old

corpses of oaks, ashes, and chestnuts, directly before your

windows, and blocking up one of my views of the river! but so

impetuous is the rage for building, that his grace's timber

will, I trust, not annoy us long. There will soon be one

street from London to Brentford; ay, and from London to every

village ten miles round! Lord Camden has just let ground at

Kentish Town for building fourteen hundred houses--nor do I

wonder; London is, I am certain, much fuller than ever I saw

it. I have twice this spring been going to stop my coach in

Piccadilly, to inquire what was the matter, thinking there was

a mob--not at all; it was only passengers. Nor is there any

complaint of depopulation from the country: Bath shoots out

into new crescents, circuses, and squares every year:

Birmingham, Manchester, Hull, and Liverpool would serve ay King

in Europe for a capital, and would make the Empress of Russia's

mouth water. Of the war with Catherine Slay-Czar I hear not a

breath, and thence conjecture it is dozing into peace.

Mr. Dundas has kissed hands for secretary of state; and Bishop

Barrington, of Salisbury, is transferred to Durham, which he

affected not to desire, having large estates by his wife in the

south-but from

the triple-mitre downwards, it is almost always true, what I

said some years ago, that "nolo episcopari is Latin for I

lie.-- Tell it not in Gath that I say so; for I am to dine

to-morrow at the Bishop of London's, at Fulham, with Hannah

Bonner, my imprime. This morning I went with Lysons the

Reverend to see Dulwich college, founded in 1619 by Alleyn, a

player, which I had never seen in my many days. e were

received by a smart divine, tr`es bien poudr`e, and with black

satin breeches--but they are giving new wings and red satin

breeches to the good old hostel too, and destroying a gallery

with a very rich ceiling; and nothing will remain of ancient

but the front, and an hundred mouldy portraits, among apostles,

sibyls, and Kings of England. On Sunday I shall settle at

Strawberry; and then wo betide you on post-days! I cannot make

news without straw. The Johnstones are going to Bath, for the

healths of both; so Richmond will be my only staple. Adieu,

all three!

(801) Lady Anne Wentworth, married to the Right Honourable

Thomas Conolly.

(802) Francis, fifth Duke of Bedford. He died at Woburn, in

March 1802, at the early age of thirty-one; upon which event,

Mr. Fox, in moving for a new writ for Tavistock, in the room of

his brother John, who succeeded to the dukedom, pronounced an

eloquent eulogium on the deceased-the only speech he could ever

be prevailed upon to revise for publication-E.

(803) Maria Cosway, the wife of the eminent painter, and

herself distinguished for her proficience both in painting and

music. She was a native of Italy but of English parentage; and

being passionately fond of music, her soir`ees in Pall-Mall and

afterwards in Stratford-place, were attended by all the fashion

of the town. In consequence of ill-health, accompanied by her

brother, who had gained, as a student in painting, the

Academy's gold metal, she had left England for Italy; where she

remained about three years.-E

(804) The celebrated Count Lally do Tollendal. In 1789, he was

one of the most eloquent members of the Constituent Assembly;

but disapproving of the principles that prevailed, he retired

into Switzerland, Gibbon, in a letter of the 15th of December

of that year, says of him, "Lally is an amiable man of the

world, and a poet: he passes the winter here; you know how much

I prefer a quiet select society to a crowd of names and titles:

what happy countries are England and Switzerland, if they know

and preserve their happiness!" Having returned to France in

1792, he was sent to the Abbaye; whence he escaped during the

massacres which took place in the prisons in September, and

effected his retreat to England, where he found an asylum in

the house of Lord Sheffield. On the restoration of the

Bourbons, he was created a peer of France, and died in 1830.

The subject of the tragedy above alluded to was the fall of the

Earl of Strafford.-E.

(805) The unfortunate Count do Lally, governor of Pondicherry;

who, on the surrender of the place to the English in 1761, was

made prisoner of war, and sent to England. In the Chatham

Correspondence, there is a letter from him to Mr. Pitt, written

in English; in which he says, "When I shall have seen and heard

here of Mr. Pitt all I have already read of him, I shall always

remember I am his prisoner, and liberty to me, though a

Frenchman, is of an inestimable value; therefore, I earnestly

beg your interest with his Majesty to grant me leave to repair

to my native soil." The desired permission was granted; but no

sooner had he reached Paris, than he was thrown into the

Bastille, and after being confined several years, brought to

trial for treachery and found guilty. When his sentence was

pronounced, "the excess of his indignation," says Voltaire, "

was equal to his astonishment: he inveighed against his judges,

and, holding in his hand a pair of compasses, which he used for

tracing maps in his prison, he struck it against his heart; but

the blow was not sufficient to take away life; he was dragged

into a dung-cart, with a gag in his mouth, lest, being

conscious of his innocence, he should convince the Spectators

of the injustice of his fate." Madame du Deffand, in giving to

Walpole, on the 10th of January 1766, an account of this

horrible scene, having stated, that the populace "battait des

mains pendant l'ex`ecution," he returned her an answer, in a

high degree honourable to his moral feeling:--"Ah! Madame,

Madame, quelles horreurs me racontez-vous la! Qu'on ne dise

jamais que les Anglais sent durs et f`eroces. Veritablement ce

sent les Fran`cais qui le sent, Oui, oui, vous `etes des

sauvages, des Iroquois, vous autres. On a bien massacr`e des

gens chez nous, mais a-t-on jamais vu battre des Mains pendant

qu'on mettait `a mort un pauvre malheureux, un officier

general, qui avait langui pendant deux ans en prison? un homme

enfin si sensible `a l'honneur, qu'il n'avait pas voulu se

sauver! si touch`e de la disgrace qu'il chercha `a avaler les

grilles de sa prison plut`ot que de se voir expos`e `a

l'ignominie publique; et c'est exactement cette honn`ete pudeur

qui fait qu'on le traine dans un tombereau, et qu'on lui met un

baillon `a la bouche comme au dernier des sc`elerats. Mon

Dieu! que je suis aise d'avoir quitt`e Paris avant cette

horrible sc`ene! je me serais fait d`echirer, ou mettre `a la

Bastille."-E.

Letter 383 To The Miss Berrys.