How bitter to turn from this Elysiurn to the temple at Paris! The

fiends there have now torn her son from the Queen!(854) Can one

believe that they are human beings, who 'midst all their

confusions sit coolly meditating new tortures, new anguish for

that poor, helpless, miserable woman, after four years of

unexampled sufferings? Oh! if such crimes are not made a

dreadful lesson, this world might become a theatre of cannibals!

I hope the checks in Bretagne are legends coined by miscreants at

Paris. What can one believe? Well, I will go to bed, and try to

dream of peace and plenty; and though my lawn is burnt, and my

peas and beans, and roses and strawberries parched, I will bear 4

with patience till the harvest is got in. Saint Swithin can

never hold his water for forty days, though he can do the

contrary. Good night!

(853) Bishop Porteus, writing to Miss More on the 12th of August

says, "Your friend Lord Orford and myself are, I believe, the

only persons in the kingdom who are worthy of the hot weather--

the only true genuine summer we have had for the last thirty

years: we both agreed that it was perfectly celestial, and that

it was quite scandalous to huff it away as some people did. A

few days before it arrived, all the world was complaining of the

dreadfully cold northeast wind; and in three days after the

warmer weather came in every body was quarrelling with the heat,

and sinking under the rays of the sun. Such is that consistent

and contented thing called human nature!"-E.

(854) Marie Antoinette was separated from her sister, her

daughter, and her son, by virtue of a decree which ordered the

trial. Weber, in his memoirs of her, states, that the separation

from her son was so touching, so heartrending that the very

gaolers who witnessed the scene confessed, when they were giving

an account of' it to the authorities, that they could not refrain

from tears.-E.

Letter 404 To The Miss Berrys.(855)

Tuesday night, 8 o'clock, Sept. 17, 1793. (page 542)

My beloved spouses,

whom I love better than Solomon loved his one spouse--or his one

thousand. I lament that the summer is over; not because of its

uniquity, but because you two made it so delightful to me, that

six weeks of gout could not sour it. Pray take care of

yourselves-not for your own sakes, but for mine: for, as I have

just had my quota of gout, I may, possibly, expect to see another

summer: and, as you allow that I do know my own, and when I wish

for any thing and have it, am entirely satisfied, you may depend

upon it that I shall be as happy with a third summer, if I reach

it, as I have been with the two last.

Consider, that I have been threescore years and ten looking for a

society that I perfectly like; and at last there dropped out of

the clouds into Lady Herries's room two young gentlewomen, who I

so little thought were sent thither on purpose for me, that When

I was told they were the charming Miss Berrys, I would not even

go to the side of the chamber where they sat. But, as Fortune

never throws any thing at one's head without hitting one, I soon

found that the charming Berrys were precisely ce qu'il me

fallait; and that though young enough to be my

great-grand-daughters, lovely enough to turn the heads of all our

youths, and sensible enough, if said youths have any brains, to

set all their heads to rights again. Yes, sweet damsels, I have

found that you can bear to pass half your time with an

antediluvian, without discovering any ennui or disgust; though

his greatest merit towards you is, that he is not one of those

old fools who fancy they are in love in their dotage. I have no

such vagary; though I am not sorry that some folks think I am so

absurd, since it frets their selfishness. The Mackinsys,

Onslows, Miss Pelham, and Madame de Cambis have dined here; and

to-morrow I shall have the flamptonians and other Richmondists.

I must repeat it; keep in mind that both of you are delicate, and

not strong. If you return in better health, I shall not repine

at your journey. Good night!

(855) The Miss Berrys were at this time in Yorkshire.

Letter 405 To The Miss Berrys.

Strawberry Hill, Wednesday, 3 o'clock, Sept. 25, 1793. (page 543)

Every thing has gone au mieux. The rain vented itself to the

last drop yesterday; and the sun, as bright as the Belvedere, has

not had a wrinkle on his brow since eight o'clock this morning;

nay, he has been warm, and gilded the gallery and tribune with

sterling rays; the Thames quite full with the last deluges, and

the verdure never fresher it was born. The Duchess of York

arrived punctually at twelve, in a high phaeton, with Mrs. Ewert,

and Bude on horseback. On the step of the gate was a carpet,

and the court matted. I received the Princess at the side of

her chaise, and when entered, kissed her hand. She had meant to

ride; but had hurt her foot, and was forced to sit most of the

time she was here. We had many civil contests about my sitting

too: but I resisted, and held out till after she had seen the

house and drank chocolate in the round drawing-room; and then she

commanded General Bude to sit, that I might have no excuse: yet I

rose and fetched a salver, to give her the chocolate myself, and

then a glass of water. She seemed much pleased, and commended

much; and I can do no less of her, and with the strictest truth.

She is not near so small as I had expected; her face is very

agreeable and lively; and she is so good-humoured, and so

gracious, and so natural, that I do not believe Lady Mary

Coke(856) would have made a quarter so pleasing a Duchess of

York; nor have been in half so sweet a temper, unless by my

attentions de vieille cour. I was sorry my Eagle(857) had been

forced to hold its tongue To-morrow I shall go to Oatlands, with

my thanks for the honour; and there, probably, will end my

connexions with courts, begun with George the First,

great-great-great-grandfather to the Duchess of' York! It

sounds as if there could not have been above three generations

more before Adam.

Great news How eager Mr. Berry will look!-but it is not

from armies or navies; not from the murderers at Paris, nor from

the victims at Grodno. No! it is only an event in the little

world of me. This morning, to receive my Princess, I put on a

silver waistcoat that I had made three years ago for Lord

Cholmondeley's marriage, and have not worn since. Considering,

my late illness, and how many hundredweight of chalk I have been

Venting these ten years, I concluded my wedding garment would

wrap round me like my nightgown; but, lo! it was grown too tight

for me. I shall be less surprised, if, in My next century, and

under George the Tenth, I grow as plump as Mrs. Ellis.

Methinks I pity you, when all the world is in arms, and you

expect to hear that Saul Duke of Brunswick has slain his

thousands, and David Prince of Cobourg his ten thousands, to be

forced to read the platitudes that I send you, because I have

nothing better to amuse me than writing to you. Well! you know

how to get rid of my letters. Good night. I reckon you are at

Brumpton,(858) and have had no accidents, I hope, on the road.

(856) Lady Mary Coke, youngest daughter of John Duke of Argyle,

married to Lord Coke, eldest son of the Earl of Leicester.

After his death she fancied an attachment existed between herself

and the Duke of York, brother of George the Third; which she

likewise fancied had ended in an undeclared marriage.-M.B.

(857) The antique marble eagle in the gallery at Strawberry Hill,

round the neck of which was to have been suspended some lines

which Lord Orford had written, extolling the, Duke of York's

military fame and conquests in Holland, which the unfortunate

issue of the campaign obliged him to suppress.-E.

(858) The seat of Sir George Cayley, Bart. near Scarborough.

Letter 406 To The Miss Berrys.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 6, 1793. (page 544)

You are welcome to Scarborough both, and buon proviccia! As you,

Mrs. Mary, have been so mistaken about your sister, I shall allow

nobody for the future to take a panic about either but myself. I

am rejoiced the journey seems hitherto to answer so well; but, do

you know, "it is very inconvenient to my Lord Castlecomer." I am

forced to eat all the game of your purparties, as well as my own

thirds.

Pray did not you think that the object of the grand alliance was

to reduce France? No such thing! at least their views have

changed ever since they heard of your setting out. Without

refining too much, it is clear to me that all they think on now,

is to prevent my sending you news. Does any army stir? Is not

the Duke of Brunswick gone to sleep again, like a paroli at faro,

or like a paroil at Torbay, which cocks one corner, but never

wins a septleva? That Lord Admiral reminds me of a trait of poor

Don Carlos, which helped on his death-warrant. He one day made a

little book, which he intituled "The Travels of Philip the

Second, King of Spain." It contained his Majesty's removals from

his capital to his country palaces, and back again. Well! if all

those monarchs are so pitiful as to set their wits against you, I

will balk them. I will do as other folks do; I will make news

myself-not to-night; for I have no invention by me at present:

besides, you are apt to sift news too shrewdly

.But, before I coin a report for you, I must contradict one. If

you should hear in Yorkshire, that I am appointed aide-de-camp to

the Duke of York, you may safely contradict it. It could only

arise from the Duchess of York's visit to me; just as, the year

before you came to Cliveden, your predecessor, Sir Robert

Goodere, literally told me, that he heard that Princess Elizabeth

had been sent to me for two days for the air. On questioning him

roundly, I discovered that he had heard no such thing; but had

conjectured so. on seeing two of the Duchess of Gloucester's

servants pass before his door from or to the Pavilions; which

ought not to have puzzled the goose's imagination a moment--but

thus reports originate!

Monday night, 7th.

I come from Mrs. Jeffries at Richmond, but return not a battle

richer than I went; though I saw the secretary-at-war' there, and

even the panic-master-general, who had not a single alarm to

bestow on a poor soul who is hungering and thirsting for news,

good or bad, to send to you. Sir George Yonge,(859) indeed, did

tell us, that thirty Jacobins, who had disguised themselves as

priests, to bring scandal on their countrymen of that profession,

but who, the Bishop of Leon declares, are none of their clergy,

have been detected and seized, and are to be sent away to-morrow.

Home news from Richmond. Your friend Mr. Dundas was robbed this

morning at eleven o'clock at Cranford-bridge. He happened to

tell them he is a surgeon; on which they insisted on his giving

them his case of instruments. I suspect they are French

surgeons, and will poison the instruments for the first wound

they dress. You see how I labour in your service, though my

crops are small. An old Duchess of Rutland, mother of the late

Duchess of Montrose, whenever a visiter told her some news or

scandal, cried to her daughter, "Lucy, do step into next room,

and make a memorandum of what Lady Greenwich, or Lady M.M. or

N.N. has been telling us." "Lord! Madam, to be sure it cannot

be true." "No matter, child; it will do for news in the

country." It is for want of such prudent provision pour le

couvent, that so many people are forced to invent off-hand. You

cannot say I am so thoughtless: you receive every morsel

piping-hot as it comes from the bakers. One word about our

glorious weather, and I have done. It even improves every day.

I kept the window open till dinner-time to-day, and could do

nothing but gaze at the brilliant beauty of the verdure. It is

so equal to ordinary Julys, that one is surprised to see the sun

set before six o'clock. Good night!

(859) Sir George Yonge.

Letter 407 To Miss Hannah More.(860)

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 1793. page 546)

Though it would make me happy, my dear Madam, if you were more

corresponding, yet I must not reproach your silence, nor wish it

were less; for all your moments are so dedicated to goodness, and

to unwearied acts of benevolence, that you must steal from

charity, or purloin from the repose you want, any that you bestow

on me. Do not I know, too, alas! how indifferent your health is!

You sacrifice that to your duties: but can a friend, who esteems

you so highly as I do, be so selfish as to desire to cost you

half an hour's headache! No, never send me a line that you can

employ better; that would trespass on your ease.

Of the trash written against you I had never even heard.(861)

Nor do I believe that they gave you any other disquiet than what

arose from seeing that the worthiest and most humane intentions

are poison to some human beings. Oh! have not the last five

years brought to light such infernal malevolence, such monstrous

crimes, as mankind had grown civilized enough to disbelieve when

they read any thing similar in former ages; if, indeed, any thing

similar has been recorded. But I must not enter into what I dare

not fathom. Catherine Slay-Czar triumphs over the good honest

Poles; and Louis Seize perishes on a scaffold, the best of men:

while whole assemblies of fiends, calling themselves men, are

from day to day meditating torment and torture for his heroic

widow; On whom, with all their power and malice, and with every

page, footman, and chambermaid of hers In their reach, and with

the rack in their hands, they have not been able to fix a speck.

Nay, do they not talk of the inutility of evidence? What other

virtue ever sustained such an ordeal? But who can wonder, when

the Almighty himself is called by one of those wretches, the

soi-disant God.

You say their outrageous folly tempts you to smile(862)--yes,

yes: at times I should have laughed too, if I could have dragged

my muscles at once from the zenith of horror to the nadir of

contempt: but their abominations leave one leisure enough to leap

from indignation to mirth. I abhor war and bloodshed as much as

you do; but unless the earth is purged of such monsters, peace

and morality will never return. This is not a war of nation and

nation; it is the cause of every thing dear and sacred to

civilized man, against the unbounded licentiousness of assassins,

who massacre even the generals who fight for them--not that I

pity the latter; but to whom can a country be just that rewards

tools with the axe? What animal is so horrible as one that

devours its own young ones?

That execrable nation overwhelms ill moralizing. At any other

minute the unexpected death of Lady Falmouth would be striking:

yet I am sorry for Mrs. Boscawen. I have been ill for six weeks

with the gout, and am just recovered: yet I remember it less than

the atrocities of France; and I remember, if possible, with

greater indignation, their traitors here at home; amongst whom

are your antagonists. Do not apologize for talking Of them and

yourself. Punish them not by answering, but by supporting the

good cause, and by stigmatizing the most imprudent impiety that

ever was avowed.

Mrs. Garrick dined here to-day, with some of the quality of

Hampton and Richmond. She appears quite well, and was very

cheerful: I wish you were as well recovered. Do you remember how

ill I found you both last year in the Adelphi? Adieu! thou

excellent champion, as well as practiser, of all goodness. Let

the vile abuse vented against you be balm to your mind: your

writings must have done great service, when they have so provoked

the enemy. All who have religion or principle must revere your

name. Who would not be hated by Duponts and Dantons!--and if

abhorrence of atheism implies Popery, reckon it a compliment to

be called Papist. The French have gone such extravagant lengths,

that to preach or practise massacres is, with them, the sole test

of merit-of patriotism. Just in one point Only they have merit;

they sacrifice the blackest criminals with as much alacrity as

the most innocent or the most virtuous: but I beg your pardon; I

know not how to stop when I talk of these ruffians. Yours, most

cordially and most sincerely.

(860) Now first collected.

(861) Three abusive answers to Miss More's pamphlet against M.

Dupont had just been published.-E.

(862) Miss More had said,--"These mad monkeys of the Convention

do contrive to enliven my unappeasable indignation against them

with occasional provocatives to mirth. How do you like the

egregious inventions of the anniversary follies of the 10th of

August?"-E.

Letter 408 To The Miss Berrys.

Strawberry Hill, Tuesday evening, eight o'clock, Oct. 15, 1793.

(page 547)

Though I do not know when it will have its whole lading, I must

begin my letter this very moment, to tell you what I have just

heard. I called on the Princesse d'Hennin, who has been in town

a week. I found her quite alone, and I thought she did not

answer quite clearly about her two knights: the Prince de Poix

has taken a lodging in town, and she talks of letting her house

here, if she can. In short, I thought she had a little of an

Ariadne-air--but this was not what I was in such a hurry to tell

you. She showed me several pieces of letters, I think from the

Duchesse de Bouillon: one says, that poor Duchesse de Biron is

again arrested and at the Jacobins, and with her "une jeune

`etourdie, qui ne fait que chanter toute la journ`ee;" and who,

think you, may that be?--only our pretty little wicked Duchesse

de Fleury! by her singing and not sobbing, I suppose she was

weary of her Tircis, and is glad to be rid of him. This new

blow, I fear, will overset Madame de Biron again. The rage at

Paris seems to increase daily or hourly; they either despair, or

are now avowed banditti. I tremble so much for the great- and

most suffering victim of all, the Queen, that one cannot feel so

much for many, as several perhaps deserve: but her tortures have

been of far longer duration than any martyrs, and more various;

and her courage and patience equal to her woes!(864)

My poor old friend, the Duchesse de la Vali`ere, past ninety and

stone-deaf, has a guard set upon her, but in her own house; her

daughter, the Duchesse de Chatillon, mother of the Duchesse de la

Tremouille, is arrested; and thus the last, with her attachment

to the Queen, must be miserable indeed!--But one would think I

feel for nothing but Duchesses: the crisis has crowded them

together into my letter, and into a prison;-and to be prisoner

amongst cannibals is pitiable indeed!

Thursday morning, 17th, past ten.

I this moment receive the very comfortable twin-letter. I am so

conjugal, and so much in earnest upon the article of recovery,

that I cannot think of a pretty thing to say to very pretty Mrs.

Stanhope; nor do I know what would be a pretty thing in these

days. I might come out with some old-fashioned compliment, that

would have been very genteel In

"good Queen Bess's golden day, when I was a dame of honour."

Let Mrs. Stanhope(865) imagine that I have said all she

deserves: I certainly think it, and will ratify it, when I have

learnt the language of the nineteenth century; but I really am so

ancient, that as Pythagoras imagined he had been Panthoides

Enphorbus in the Trojan war, I am not sure that I did not ride

upon a pillion behind a gentleman-usher, when her Majesty

Elizabeth went in procession to St. Paul's on the defeat of the

Armada! Adieu! the postman puts an end to idle speculations--but,

Scarborough for ever! with three huzzas!

(863) The Duchess perished under the guillotine in the following

year.-E.

(864) On the 16th of October, a few hours after Walpole had

penned the above letter, the unfortunate Marie Antoinette was

conducted, amidst a great concourse of the populace, to the fatal

spot, where, ten months before, Louis the Sixteenth had perished.

"Sorrow had blanched her once beautiful hair: but her features

and air commanded the admiration of all who beheld her. Her

cheeks, pale and emaciated, were occasionally tinged with a vivid

colour at the mention of those she had lost. When led out to

execution, she was dressed in white; she had cut off her hair

with her own hands. Placed in a tumbrel, with her arms tied

behind her, she was taken to the Place de la R`evolution. She

listened with calmness to the exhortations of the ecclesiastic

who accompanied her, and cast an indifferent look at the people

who had so often applauded her beauty and her grace, and who now

as warmly applauded her execution. On reaching the foot of the

scaffold, she perceived the Tuileries, and appeared to be moved;

but she hastened to ascend the fatal ladder, and gave herself up

with courage to the executioner. The infamous wretch exhibited

her head to the people, as he was accustomed to do when he had

sacrificed an illustrious victim. The Jacobins were overjoyed.

'Let these tidings be carried to Austria,' said they; 'the Romans

sold the ground occupied by Hannibal; we strike off the heads

that are dearest to the sovereigns who have invaded our

territory.' " See Thiers, vol. iii. p. 196, and Lacretelle, tom.

xi. p. 261.-E.

(865) The wife of Colonel Stanhope, brother of the Earl of

Harrington.

Letter 409 To The Miss Berrys.

Strawberry Hill, Nov. 7, 1793. (page 549)

I often lay the egg of my journals two or three days before they

are hatched. This may make some of my articles a little stale

before you get them; but then you know they are the more

authentic, if the Echo has not told me to unsay them-and, if a

Prince of Wales drops a thumping victory at my door as he goes

by, you have it hot out of the oven--though, as happened lately,

not half baked.(866)

The three last newspapers are much more favourable, than you

seemed to expect. Nieuport has been saved; Ostend is safe. The

Royalists in La Vend`ee are not demolished, as the Convention of

Lars asserted. Strasbourg seems likely to fall. At Toulon even

the Neapolitans, on whom you certainly did not reckon, have

behaved like heroes. As Admiral Gravina is so hearty, though his

master makes no progress in France, I suspect that the sovereign

of so many home kingdoms is a little afraid Of trusting his army

beyond the borders, lest the Catalans should have something of

the old--or new leaven. In the mean time, it Is still more

provoking to hear of Catherine Slay-Czar sitting on her throne

and playing with royal marriages, without sending a single ship

or regiment to support the cause of Europe, and to punish the Men

of the Mountain, who really are the assassins that the Crusaders

supposed or believed existed in Asia. Oh! Marie Antoinette, what

a contrast between you and Petruchia!

Domestic news are scanty, but dismal, and you have seen them

anticipated; as the loss of the young Lord Montague(867) and Mr.

Burdett,(868) drowned in a cataract in Switzerland by their own

obstinate folly.(869) Mr. Tickell's death was a determined

measure, and more shocking than the usual mode by a pistol. He

threw himself from one of the uppermost windows of the palace at

Hampton Court, into the garden -an immense height! Some attribute

his despair to debts; some to a breach with his political

friends. I am not acquainted with, but am sorry for him, as I

liked his writings.(870)

Our weather remains unparagoned; Mrs. Hastings is not more

brilliant: the elms are evergreens. I a little regret your not

seeing how beautiful Cliveden can be on the 7th of November; ay,

and how warm. Then the pheasants, partridges, and hares from

Houghton, that you lose: they would have exceeded Camacho's

wedding, and Sancho Panza would have talked chapters about them.

I am forced to send them about the neighbourhood, as if I were

making interest to be chosen for the united royal burghs of

Richmond and Hampton Court. But all this is not worth sending: I

must wait for a better bouche. I want Wurmser to be Caesar, and

send me more Commentaries de Bello Gallico. What do you say to

those wretches who have created Death an endless Sleep,(871) that

nobody may boggle at any crime for fear of hell? Methinks they

have no reason to dread the terrors of conscience in any

Frenchman!

November 10th.

Hiatus non deflendus; for I have neither heard a word, nor had a

word to say these three days. Victories do not come every tide,

like mackerel, or prizes in the Irish lottery. Yesterday's paper

discounted a little of Neapolitan valour; but, as even the Dutch

sometimes fight upon recollection, and as there was no account

yet of O'Hara's arrival at Toulon, I hope he will laugh or

example lor' Signori into spirit.

YOU Will Wonder at my resuming my letter, when I profess having

nothing to add to it; but yours of the 7th is just arrived, and I

could not make this commenced sheet lie quiet in my writing-box:

it would begin gossiping with your letter, though I vowed it

shall not Set out till to-morrow. "Why, you empty thing," said

I, "how do you know but there may have been a Gazette last night,

crammed With vast news, which, as no paper comes out on Sundays,

we shall not learn here; and would you be such a goose as to

creep through Brentford and Hammersmith and Kensington, where the

bells may be drinking some general's health, and will scoff you

for asking whose? Indeed you Shall not stir before to-morrow.

Lysons is returned from Gloucestershire, and is to dine here

to-day; and he will at least bring us a brick, like Harlequin, as

a pattern of any town that we may have taken. Moreover, no Post

sets out from London on Sunday nights, and you would only sit

guzzling--I don't mean you, Miss Berry, but you, my letter-with

the clerks of the post-office. Patience till tomorrow."

We have had some rain, even this last night: but the weather is

fine all day, and quite warm. I believe it has made an

assignation with the Glastonbury Thorn, and that they are to

dance together on old Christmas-day. What could I do with myself

in London! All my playthings are here, and I have no playfellows

left there! Lady Herries's and poor Mrs. Hunter's(872) are shut

up. Even the "one game more at cribbage"(873) after supper is on

table, which is not my supreme felicity, though accompanied by

the Tabor and Pipe,(874) is in the country or, to say all in a

word, North Audley-street is in Yorkshire! Reading composes

little of my pastime, either in town or country. A catalogue of

books and prints, or a dull history of a county, amuse me

sufficiently; for now I cannot open a French book, as it would

keep alive ideas that I want to banish from my thoughts. When I

am tired at home, I go and sit an hour or two with the ladies of

Murray,(875) or the Doyleys, and find them conversable and

comfortable; and my pessime aller is Richmond.

Monday morning, 11th.

Lysons(876) has been drawing churches in Gloucestershire, and

digging out a Roman villa and mosaic pavement near Cirencester,

which he means to publish: but he knew nothing outlandish; so if

the newspaper does not bring me something fresh for you

presently, this limping letter must set out with its empty

wallet. Mrs. Piozzi is going to publish a book on English

Synonymes. Methinks she had better have studied them, before she

stuffed her Travels with so many vulgarisms!(877)

(866) This alludes to some false report of the time.

(867) Lord Viscount Montague was the last male heir of a most

noble and ancient family, in a lineal descent from the Lady Lucy

Nevill.-E.

(868) Charles Sedley Burdett, second son of Francis Burdett Esq.

and brother of Francis, who on the death of his grandfather, Sir

Robert Burdett, in 1797, succeeded to the baronetcy.-E.

(869) They insisted on shooting down the, great fall of the Rhine

at Schaflhausen in a boat, against the remonstrances of the

neighbouring inhabitants and their refusal of every bribe, either

to assist or accompany them. They and their boat were shattered

to pieces, and their remains were found some days after, at a

considerable distance from the scene of their mad exploit.

(870) Richard Tickell, Esq. author of "Anticipation," the "

Wreath of Fashion," and other poems. He was a commissioner of

the stamp-office, and brother-in-law to Richard Brinsley

Sheridan.-E.

(871) "C'est ici l'asile du sommeil `eternel," was the republican

inscription over all the public cemeteries. Pache, Hebert, and

Chaumette, the leaders of the municipality, publicly expressed

their determination to dethrone the King of Heaven, as well as

the kings of the earth. Gebel, the constitutional Bishop of

Paris, disowned at the bar of the Convention the existence of a

God. On the 10th of November, a female whom they termed the

Goddess of Reason, was admitted within the bar, and placed on the

right hand of the president. After receiving the fraternal hug,

she was mounted on a magnificent car, and conducted to the church

of Notre Dame, to take the place of the Holy of Holies; and

thenceforth that ancient and imposing cathedral was called "the

Temple of Reason," See Thiers, vol. iii, p. 2,25, and

Lacretelle, torn. xi. p, 306.-E.

(872) Widow of Dr. John Hunter.

(873) A manner of designating the Countess of Ailesbury.

(874) Two old ladies of his society, whom he thus called.

(875) Sisters to the great Earl of Mansfield.

(876) Samuel Lysons, Esq. brother to the Rev. Daniel Lysons, of

whom a notice has been given at p. 438, (letter 344, note 674(,

and author of several works relating to the Roman Antiquities of

Great Britain. He also published, in conjunction with his

brother, the earlier volumes of the "Magna Britannica." In 1804,

be succeeded Mr. Astle as keeper of the records in the Tower of

London; which office he held till his death in 1819. Mr.

Mathias, in November 1797, described him as "one of the most

judicious, best-informed, and most learned amateur antiquaries in

the kingdom in his department;" and his work on the remains of

the Roman villa and pavements near Gloucester, as "such a

specimen of ingenuity, unwearied zeal, and critical accuracy in

delineating and illustrating the fragments of antiquity, as

rarely had been equalled, certainly never surpassed." See

Pursuits of Literature.-E.

(877) The following is Mr. Gifford's opinion of the

qualifications of the lady for such a work--"Though no one better

knows his own house' than I the vanity of this woman; yet the

idea of her undertaking it had never entered my head; and I was

thunderstruck when I first saw it announced. To execute it with

any tolerable degree of success, required a rare combination of

talents, among the least of which may be numbered neatness of

style, acuteness of perception, and a more than common accuracy

of discrimination; and Mrs. Piozzi brought to the task, a jargon

long since become proverbial for its vulgarity, an utter

incapacity of defining a single term in the language, and just as

much Latin from a child's syntax as sufficed to expose the

ignorance she so anxiously labours to conceal." See Baviad and

Maviad.-E.

Letter 410 To Miss Berry.

Berkeley Square, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 1793. (page 552)

I begin my last letter to Bransby, that I may have it ready to

send away the moment I shall have any thing worth telling; which

I certainly have not yet. What is become of Lord Howe and Co.

you may guess if you please, as every body is doing--

"I'm weary of conjectures--"

but shall not end them like Cato, because I take the fate of a

whole fleet a little more likely to come to a solution than

doubts in metaphysics; and if Lord Howe should at last bring home

two or three French men-of-war, one would not be out of the way

to receive them. In the mean time, let us chat as if the destiny

of half Europe were not at this moment in agitation.

I went on Monday evening with Miss Damer to the little Haymarket,

to see "The Children in the Wood," having heard so much of my

favourite, young Bannister, in that new piece; which, by the way,

is well arranged, and near being fine.(878) He more than

answered

my expectation, and all I had heard of him. It was one of the

most admirable performances I ever saw: his transports of despair

and joy are incomparable, and his various countenances would be

adequate to the pencil of Salvator Rosa. He made me shed as many

tears as I suppose the original old ballad did when I was six

years old. Bannister's merit was the more striking, as, before

"The Children in the Wood," he had been playing the sailor in "No

Song no Supper," with equal nature. I wish I could hope to be as

much pleased tomorrow night when I am to go to Jerningham's play;

but there is no Bannister at Covent-garden!

On Sunday night I found the Comte de Coigni(879) at Lady Lucan's.

He was to set out the next morning with Lord Moira's expedition

as a common soldier. This sounded decent and well; but you may

guess that he had squeezed a little Frenchism into his intention,

and had asked for a vessel and some soldiers to attend him. I

don't know whether he has condescended to go without them. I

asked him about his daughter; he said, he did not believe she was

in prison. Others say, it is the Duchesse de Fleury, her

mother-in-law. I have been surprised at not seeing or hearing

any thing of poor Fleury(880) but I am told he has been forced to

abscond, having narrowly escaped being arrested by a coachmaker,

to whom he owed five hundred pounds for carriages: which, to be

sure, he must have had, or

bespoken at Paris before the revolution.

Thursday noon.

Yesterday came a letter to the Admiralty, notifying that Lord

Howe has taken five of the Brest squadron: but this intelligence

is derived through so many somebodys, that handed it to

somebodys, that I am not much inclined, except by wishing it

true, to believe it. However, the wind has got much more to the

west, and now we shall probably not remain much longer in total

darkness.

Three o'clock.

Another account is come to Mrs. Nugent's(881) from her husband,

with the same story of the five captive French men-of-war; and so

that reading is admitted: but for my part, I will admit nothing

but under Lord Howe's own hand. It is tiresome to be like the

scene in Amphitryon, and cry one minute "Obvious, obvious!" and

the next "Dubious, dubious!" Such fluctuability is fit only for a

stock-jobber. Adieu! I must dress and dine, or I shall not be

ready to wait on your grandfather Seton.(882)

(878) See the Memoirs of this admirable comedian, by Mr.

Adolphus, recently published in two volumes octavo. The drama

here spoken of was the production of Mr. Morton, and formed from

the ancient ballad of the cruel uncle who murdered his brother's

children in a wood, that he might inherit the family estate.-E.

(879) Younger brother of the Duc de Coigni, the grand `ecuyer of

Marie Antoinette and great uncle of the present Duc de Coigni.

(880) The Duc de Fleury, the Count de Coigni's son-in-law.

(881) The wife of Admiral Nugent.

(882) he means Mr. Jerningham's play, the Siege of Berwick.

Letter 411 To The Miss Berrys.

Friday, December 13, 1793. (page 553)

You will not wonder at my dulness about the time of your setting

out, and of the giles you are to make on the road: you are used

to my fits of incomprehension; and, as is natural at my age, I

believe they increase. What augmented them was my eagerness to

be sure of every opportunity of sending you the earliest

intelligence of every event that may happen at this critical

period. That impatience has sometimes made me too precipitate in

my information. I believed Lord Howe's success too rapidly: you

have seen by all the newspapers, that both the ministers and the

public were equally credulous, from the collateral channels that

imported such assertions! Well! if you have been disappointed of

capturing five or six French men-of-war, you must at present stay

your appetite by some handsome slices of St. Domingo, and by

plentiful goblets of French blood shed by the Duke of Brunswick;

which we firmly believe, though the official intelligence was not

arrived last night. His Highness, who has been so serene for

above a year, seems to have waked to some purpose and, which is

not less propitious, his victory indicates that his principal,

the King of Prussia, has added no more French jewels to his

regalia. I shall like to hear the National Convention accuse him

of being bribed by a contrary Pitt's diamond.(883) Here is

another comfortable symptom: it looks as if Robespierre would

give up Barr`ere. How fortunate that Beelzebubs and Molochs

peach one another, like human highwaymen! I will tell you a

reflection I have made, and which shows how the worst monsters

counteract their own councils. Many formerly, who meant to

undermine religion, began by sapping the belief of a devil.

Next, by denying God, they have restored Satan to his throne, or

will; though the present system is a republic of fiends. The

Pandemonium below recalls its agents, as if they were only

tribunes of the people elected by temporary factions. Barnave,

called the Butcher in the first Convention, is ,gone, like

Orleans and Brissot. If we do not presume to interpret

judgments, I wonder the monsters themselves do not: enough has

happened already to warn them of their own fate!

The Conways are in town for two or three days: they came for Mr.

Jerningham's play. Harris had at last allowed him the fourth

night; and he had a good night. I have a card from Lady Amherst

for Monday; and shall certainly go, as my lord behaved so nobly

about our cousin.(884) I have another from the Margravine of

Anspach, to sup at Hammersmith; whither I shall certainly not go,

but plead the whole list of chronical distempers. Do you think

if the whole circle of Princes of Westphalia were to ask me for

next Thursday evening,(885) that I would accept the invitation?

Saturday, Dec. 14, 1793.

I am glad this is to be the last of my gazettes. I am tired of

notifying and recalling the articles of news: not that I am going

to dislaurel the Duke of Brunswick; but not a sprig is yet come

in confirmation. Military critics even conjecture, by the

journals from Manheim and Frankfort, that the German victories

have not been much more than repulses of the French, and have

been bought dearly. I have inclined to believe the best from

Wurmser; but I confess my best hopes are from the factions of

Paris. If the gangrene does not gain the core, how calculate the

duration? It has already baffled all computation, all conjecture.

One wonders now that France, in its totality, was not more fatal

to Europe than even it was. Is not it astonishing, that after

five years of such havoc, such emigrations, expulsions,

massacres, annihilation of commerce, evanition Of specie, and

real or impending famine, they can still furnish and support

armies against us and the Austrians in Flanders, against the Duke

of Brunswick and Wurmser, against us at Toulon, against the King

of Sardinia, against Spain, against the Royalists in La Vend`ee,

and along the coast against our expedition under Lord Moira; and

though we have got fifteen of their men-of-war at Toulon, they

have sixteen, or more, at Brest, and are still impertinent with a

fry of privateers? Consider, too, that all this spirit is kept

up by the most extravagant lies, delusions, rhodomontade; by the

extirpation of the usual root of enthusiasm, religion; and by the

terror of murder, that ought to revolt all mankind. If such a

system of destruction does not destroy itself, there is an end of

that ignis fatuus, human reason; and French policy must govern,

or exterminate mankind.

I this moment received Your Thursday's note, with that for your

housekeeper, who is in town, and with those sweet words, "You

need not leave a card; we shall be at home." I do not believe I

shall send you an excuse. Marshal Conway has stopped in to tell

me, he has Just met with his nephew, Lord Yarmouth,(886) who has

received a letter from a foreign minister at Manheim, who asserts

all the Duke of Brunswick's victories, and the destruction or

dispersion of the French army in that quarter. The Earl

maintains, that the King of Prussia's politics are totally

changed to the right, and that eighteen thousand more of his

troops have joined the allies. I should like to know, and to

have the Convention know, that the murder of the Queen of France

has operated this revulsion.

I hope I send you no more falsehoods-at least, you must allow,

that it is not on bad authority. If Lord Howe has disappointed

you, you will accept the prowess of the virago his sister, Mrs.

Howe.(887) As soon as it was known that her brother had failed,

a Jacobin mob broke her windows, mistaking them for his. She

lifted up the sash, and harangued them; told them, that was not

the house of her brother, Who lives in the other part of

Grafton-street, and that she herself is a widow, and that that

house is hers. She stilled the waves, and they dispersed

quietly.

There! There end my volumes, to my great satisfaction! If we are

to have any bonfires or illuminations, you will be here to light

them Yourselves. Adieu to Yorkshire!

(883) He means bribed by the then prime minister.

(884) Lord Amherst, the then commander-in-chief, had appointed a

cousin of Miss Berry's to an ensigncy, on his recommendation.

(885) The persons addressed were to arrive in London.

(886) The present Marquis of Hertford.

(887) A person of distinguished abilities, She possessed an

extraordinary force of mind, clearness of understanding, and

remarkable powers of thought and combination, She retained them

unimpaired to the great age of eighty-five, by exercising them

daily, both in the practice of mathematics and in reading the two

dead languages; of which, late in life, she had made herself

mistress. To those acquirements must be added warm. and lively

feelings, joined to a perfect knowledge of the world and of the

society of which she had always been a distinguished member. Mr.

Walpole, from misinformation of her conduct towards a friend of

his in earlier life, had never done justice to her character--a

mistake, in which she did not participate, relative to him.-M.B.

Letter 412 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Berkeley Square, Jan. 10, 1794. (page 555)

I certainly sympathize with you on the reversed and gloomy

prospect of affairs, too extensive to detail in a letter; nor

indeed do I know any thing more than I collect from newspapers

and public reports; and those are so overcharged with falsehoods

on all sides, that, if one waits for truth to emerge, one finds

new subjects to draw one's attention before firm belief can

settle its trust on any. That the mass and result are bad, is

certain; and though I have great alacrity in searching for

comforts and grounds of new hopes, I am puzzled as much in

seeking resources, as in giving present credit. Reasonine is out

of the question: all calculation is baffled: nothing happens that

Sense Or experience said was probable. I wait to see what will

happen, without a guess at what is to be expected. A storm, when

the Parliament meets, will no doubt be attempted. How the

ministers are prepared to combat it, I don't know, but I hope

sufficiently, if it spreads no farther: at least I think they

have no cause to fear the new leader who is to make the attack.

I have neither seen Mr. Wilson's book(888) nor his answerers. So

far from reading political pamphlets, I hunt for any books,

except modern novels, that will not bring France to my mind, or

that at least will put it out for a time. But every fresh person

one sees, revives the conversation: and excepting a long

succession of fogs, nobody talks of any thing else; nor of

private news do I know a tittle. Adieu!

(888) It was entitled "A Letter, Commercial and Political,

addressed to the Right Hon. William Pitt-, by Jasper Wilson, jun.

Esq." The real author was Dr. Currie, the friend of Mr.

Wilberforce; who commends it, "as exhibiting originality of

thought and force of expression, and solving, finely the

phenomena of revolutions." See Life, vol. ii. p. 13.-E.

Letter 413 To Miss Berry.

Thursday evening, April 16, 1794. (page 556)

I am delighted that you have such good weather for your

villeggiatura. The sun has not appeared here to-day; yet it has

been so warm, that he may not be gone out of town, and only keeps

in because it is unfashionable to be seen in London at Easter.

All my evening customers are gone, except Mrs. Damer, and she is

at home to-night with the Greatheds and Mrs. Siddons, and a few

more; and she had a mind I should go to her, I had a mind too;

but think myself still too weak: after confinement for fourteen

weeks, it seems formidable to sally forth. I have heard no

novelty since you 'went, but of more progress in Martinico; on

which it is said there is to be a Gazette, and which, I suppose,

gave a small fillip to the stocks this morning: though my Jew,

whom I saw again this morning, ascribed the rise to expectation

in the City of news of a counter-revolution at Paris;-but a

revolution to be, generally proves an addled egg.

The Gazette arrives, and little of Martinico remained

unconquered. The account from Sir Charles Gray is one continued

panegyric on the conduct of our officers soldiers, and sailors;

who do not want to be driven on `a la Dumaurier, by cannon behind

them and on both sides. A good quantity of artillery and stores

is taken too, and only two officers and about seventy men killed.

There is a codicil to the Gazette, with another post taken--the

map, I suppose, knows where I do not--but you, who are a

geographess, will, or easily find it out.

At my levee before dinner, I had Mrs. Buller, Lady Lucan, Sir

Charles Blagden, Mr. Coxe, and Mr. Gough. This was a good day; I

have not always so welcome a circle. I have run through both

volumes of Mrs. Piozzi. Here and there she does not want parts,

has some good translations, and stories that are new;

particularly an admirable bon-mot of Lord Chesterfield, which I

never heard before, but dashed with her cruel vulgarisms: see

vol. ii. p. 291. The story, I dare to say, never happened, but

was invented by the Earl himself; to introduce his reply. The

sun never was the emblem of Louis Quinze, but of Louis Quatorze;

In whose time his lordship was not ambassador, nor the Czarina

Empress: nor, foolish as some ambassadors are, could two of them

propose devices for toasts; as if, like children, they were

playing at pictures and mottoes: and what the Signora styles a

public toust, the Earl, I conclude, called a great dinner then.

I have picked out a motto for her work in her own words, and

written it on the title-page: "Simplicity cannot please without

eloquence!" Now I think on't, let me ask if you have been as much

diverted as you was at first? and have not two such volumes

sometimes set you a'yawning? It is comic, that in a treatise on

synonymous words, she does not know which are and which are not

so. In the chapter on worth, she says, "The worth -even of money

fluctuates in our state;" instead of saying in this country. Her

very title is wrong; as she does not even mention synonymous

Scottish words: it ought to be called not British, but English

Synonymy.

Mr. Courtenay has published some epistles in rhyme, in which he

has honoured me with a dozen lines, and which are really some of

the best in the whole set-in ridicule of my writings. One

couplet, I suppose, alludes to my Strawberry verses on you and

your sister. Les voici--

"Who to love tunes his note, with the fire of old age,

And chirps the trim lay in a trim Gothic cage!"

If I were not as careless as I am about literary fame, still,

this censure would be harmless indeed; for except the exploded

story of Chatterton, of which I washed myself as white as snow,

Mr. Courtenay falls on my choice of subjects--as, of Richard the

Third and the Mysterious Mother--and not on the execution; though

I fear there is enough to blame in the texture of them. But this

new piece of criticism, or whatever it is, made me laugh, as I am

offered up on the tomb of my poor mad nephew; who is celebrated

for one of his last frantic acts, a publication in some monthly

magazine, with an absurd hypothesis on "the moon bursting from

the earth, and the earth from the sun, somehow or other:" but

how, indeed, especially from Mr. Courtenay's paraphrase, I have

too much sense to comprehend. However, I am much obliged to him

for having taken such pains to distinguish me from my lunatic

precursor, that even the European Magazine, when I shall die,

will not be able to confound us. Richard the Third would be

sorry to have it thought hereafter, that I had ever been under

the care of Dr. Munro. Well! good night!

Letter 414 To Miss Hannah More.

April 27, 1794. (page 558)

This is no plot to draw you into committing even a good deed on a

Sunday, which I suppose the literality of your conscience would

haggle about, as if the day of the week constitutes the sin, and

not the nature of the crime. But you may defer your answer till

to-night is become to-morrow by the clock having struck one; and

then you may do an innocent thing without any guilt, which a

quarter of an hour sooner you would think abominable. Nay, as an

Irishman would say, you need not even read this note till the

canonical hour is past.

In short, my dear Madam), I gave your obliging message to Lady

Waldegrave, who will be happy to see you on Tuesday, at one

o'clock But as her staircase is very bad, as she is in a lodging,

I have proposed that this meeting, for which I have been pimping

between two female saints, may be held here in my house, as I had

the utmost difficulty last night in climbing her scala santa, and

I cannot undertake it again. But if you are so good as to send

me a favourable answer to-morrow, I will take care you shall find

her here at the time I mentioned, with your true admirer.

Letter 415 To The Miss Berrys.

Strawberry Hill, Saturday night, Sept. 27, 1794. (page 558)

I have been in town, as I told you I should, but gleaned nothing

worth repeating, or I Would have wrote before I came away. The

Churchills left me on Thursday, and were succeeded by the Marshal

and Mr. Taylor, who dined and stayed all night. I am now alone,

having reserved this evening to answer your long, and Agnes's

short letter; but in this single one to both, for I have not

matter enough for a separate maintenance.

I went yesterday to Mrs. Damer, and had a glimpse of her new

house; literally a glimpse, for I saw but one room on the first

floor, where she had lighted a fire, that I might not mount two

flights; and as it was eight o'clock, and quite dark, she only

opened a door or two, and gave me a cat's-eye view into them.

One blemish I had descried at first; the house has a corner

arrival like her father's. Ah, me! who do not love to be led

through the public. I did see the new bust of Mrs. Siddons, and

a very mistressly performance it is indeed. Mrs. Damer was

surprised at my saying I should expect you after you had not

talked of returning near so soon. another week; she said. "I do

not mention this, as if to gainsay your intention; on the

contrary, I hope and beg you will stay as long as either of you

thinks she finds the least benefit from it: and after that, too,

as long as you both like to stay. I reproached myself so sadly,

and do still, for having dragged you from Italy sooner than you

intended, and am so grateful for your having had that

complaisance, that unless I grow quite superannuated, I think I

shall not be so selfish as to combat the inclination of either

again. It is natural for me to delight in your company; but I do

not even wish for it, if it lays you under any restraint. I have

lived a thousand years to little purpose, if I have not learned

that half a century more than the age of one's friends is not an

agr`ement de plus.

I wish you had seen Canterbury some years ago, before they

whitewashed it; for it is so coarsely daubed, and thence the

gloom is so totally destroyed, and so few tombs remain for so

vast a mass, that I was shocked at the nudity of the whole. If

you should go thither again, make the Cicerone show you a pane of

glass in the east window, which does open, and exhibits a most

delicious view of the ruins Of St. Anstin's.

Mention of Canterbury furnishes me with a very suitable

opportunity for telling you a remarkable story, which I had from

Lady Onslow t'other night, and which was related to her by Lord

Ashburnham, on whose veracity you may depend. In the hot weather

of this last summer, his lordship's very old uncle, the Bishop of

Chichester,(889) was waked in his palace at four o'clock in the

morning by his bedchamber door being opened, when a female

figure, all in white, entered, and sat down near him. The

prelate, who protests he was not frightened, said in a tone of

authority, but not with the usual triple adjuration, "Who are

you?" Not a word of reply; but the personage heaved a profound

sigh. The Bishop rang the bell; but the servants were so sound

asleep, that nobody heard him. He repeated his question: still

no answer; but another deep sigh. Then the apparition took some

papers out of the ghost of its pocket, and began to read them to

itself. At last, when the Bishop had continued to ring, and

nobody to come, the spectre rose and departed as sedately as it

had arrived. When the servants did at length appear, the bishop

cried, "Well! what have you seen?" "Seen, my lord!" "Ay, seen;

or who, what is the woman that has been here?" "Woman my lord!"

(I believe one of the fellows smiled; though, to do her justice,

Lady Onslow did not say so.) In short, when my lord had related

his vision, his domestics did humbly apprehend that his lordship

had been dreaming; and so did his whole family the next morning,

for in this our day even a bishop's household does not believe in

ghosts: and yet it is most certain that the good man had been in

no dream, and told nothing but what he had seen; for, as the

story circulated, and diverted the ungodly at the prelate's

expense, it came at last to the ears of a keeper of a mad-house

in the diocese, who came and deposed, that a female lunatic under

his care had escaped from his custody, and, finding the gate of

the palace open, had marched up to my lord's chamber. The

deponent further said, that his prisoner was always reading a

bundle of papers. I have known stories of ghosts, solemnly

authenticated, less credible; and I hope you will believe this,

attested by a father of our own church.

Sunday night, 28th, 1794.

I have received another letter from dear Mary, of the 26th; and

here is one for sweet Agnes enclosed. By her account of

Broadstairs, I thought you at the North Pole; but if you are, the

whales must be metamorphosed into gigs and whiskies, or split

into them, as heathen gods would have done, or Rich the

harlequin. You talk of Margate, but say nothing of Kingsgate,

where Charles Fox's father scattered buildings of all sorts, but

in no style of architecture that ever appeared before or has

since, and in no connexion with or to any other, and in all

directions; and yet the oddity and number made that naked, though

fertile soil, smile and look cheerful. Do you remember Gray's

bitter lines on him and his vagaries and history?(890)

I wish on your return, if in good weather, you would contrive to

visit Mr. Barrett's at Lee; it is but four miles from Canterbury.

You will see a child of Strawberry prettier than the parent, and

so executed and so finished! There is a delicious closet, too,

so flattering to me: and a prior's library so antique, and that

does such honour to Mr. Wyat's taste! Mr. Barrett, I am Most

sure, would be happy to show his house to you; and I know, if you

tell him that I beg it, he will produce the portrait of Anne of

Cleve by Holbein, in the identic ivory box, turned like a

Provence rose, as it Was brought over for Henry the Eighth. It

will be a great favour, and it must be a fine day; for it lives

in cotton and clover, and he justly dreads exposing it to any

damp. He has some other good pictures; and the whole place is

very pretty, though retired.

The Sunday's paper announces a dismal defeat of Clairfait; and

now, if true, I doubt the French will drive the Duke of York into

Holland, and then into the sea! Ora pro nobis!

P. S. If this is not a long letter, I do not know what is. The

story of the ghost should have arrived on this, which is St.

Goose's-day, or the commemoration of the ignoble army of martyrs,

who have suffered in the persecution under that gormandizing

archangel St. Michael.

(889) The Right Rev. Sir William Ashburnham, Bart, his lordship

died at a very advanced age, in September 1797. He was the

father of the bench, and the only bishop not appointed by George

the Third.-E.

(890) Entitled "Impromptu, suggested by a view, in 1766, of the

seat and ruins of a deceased Nobleman, at Kingsgate, Kent." See

Gray's Works, vol. i. p. 161, ed. 1836.-E.

Letter 416 To Miss Berry.

Strawberry Hill, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 1794. (page 561)

Your answer, which I own arrived a day sooner than I flattered

myself it would--I wish it could have told me how you passed the

storm of Sunday night it has not only relieved me from all

anxiety on the subject, but has made me exceedingly happy; for

though I mistook you for a moment, it has proved to me, that I

had judged perfectly right of your excellent and most uncommon

understanding. Astonished I was, no doubt, while I conceived

that you wished to be placed in a situation so unworthy of your

talents and abilities and knowledge, and powers of

conversation.(891) I never was of a court myself; but from my

birth and the position of my father, could but, for my first

twenty years, know much of the nature of the beast; and, from my

various connexions since, I have seldom missed farther

opportunities of keeping up my acquaintance even with the

interior. The world in general is not ignorant of the complexion

of most courts; though ambition, interest, and vanity, are always

willing to leap over their information, or to fancy they can

counteract it: but I have no occasion to probe that delusion, nor

to gainsay your random opinion, that a court life may be eligible

for women. Yes, for the idle ones you specify, perhaps so;-for

respectable women I think much less than even for men. I do not

mean with regard to what is called their character; as if there

were but one virtue with which women have any concern-I speak of

their understanding, and consequential employment of their time.

In a court there must be much idleness, even without dissipation;

and amongst the female constituents, much self-importance

ill-founded; some ambition, Jealousy, envy-and thence hatred,

insincerity, little intrigues for credit, and--but I am talking

as if there were any occasion to dissuade you from what you

despise and I have only stated what occasioned my surprise at

your thinking of what you never did think at all. Still, while I

did suppose that in any pore of your heart there did lurk such a

wish, I did give a great gulp and swallowed down all attempts to

turn your thoughts aside from it--and why? Yes, and you must be

ready to ask me, how such a true friend could give into the hint

without such numerous objections to a plan so unsuitable for you!

Oh! for strong reasons too. In the first place, I was sure,

that, without my almost century of experience, your good sense

must have anticipated all my arguments. You often confute my

desultory logic on points less important, as I frequently find;

but the true cause of my assenting, without suffering a sigh to

escape me was, because I was conscious that I could not dissuade

you fairly, without a grain or more of self mixing in the

argument. I would not trust myself with myself. I would not act

again as I did when you was in Italy; and answered you as fast as

I could, lest self should relapse. Yet, though it did not last

an hour, what a combat it was! What a blow to my dream of

happiness, should you be attached to a court! for though you,

probably, would not desert Cliveden entirely, how distracted

would Your time be!--But I will not enter into the detail of my

thoughts; you know how many posts they travel in a moment, when

my brain is set at work, and how firmly it believes all it

imagines: besides the defalcation of your society, I saw the host

of your porphyrogeniti, from top to bottom, bursting on my

tranquillity. But enough: I conquered all these dangers, and

still another objection rose when I had discovered the only

channel I could open to your satisfaction, I had no little

repugnance to the emissary I was to employ.(892) Though it is my

intention to be equitable to him, I should be extremely sorry to

give him a shadow of claim on me; and you know those who might

hereafter be glad to conclude, that it was no wonder they should

be disappointed, when gratitude on your account had been my

motive. But my cares are at an end; and though I have laboured

through two painful days, the thorns of which were sharpened, not

impeded, by the storm, I am rejoiced at the blunder I made, as it

has procured me the kindest, and most heart-dictated, and most

heartfelt letter, that ever was written; for which I give you

millions of thanks. Forgive my injurious surmise; for you see,

that though you can wound my affection, you cannot allay its

eagerness to please you, at the expense of my own satisfaction

and peace.

Having stated with most precise truth all I thought related to

yourself I do resume and repeat all I have said both in this and

my former letter, and renew exactly the same offers to my sweet

Agnes, if she has the least wish for what I supposed you wished.

Nay, I owe still more to her; for I think she left Italy more

unwillingly than you did, and gratitude to either is the only

circumstance that can add to my affection for either. I can

swallow my objections to trying my nephew as easily for her as

for you; but, having had two days and a half for thinking the

whole case over, I have no sort of doubt but the whole

establishment must be completely settled by this time; or that,

at most, if any, places are not fixed yet, It must be from the

strength and variety of contending interests: and, besides, the

new Princess will have fewer of each class of attendants than a

queen; and I shall not be surprised if there should already be a

brouillerie between the two courts about some or many of the

nominations: and though the interest I thought of trying was the

only one I could pitch upon, I do not, on reflection, suppose

that a person just favoured has favour enough already to

recommend others. Hereafter that may be better: and (" still

more feasible method, I think, would be to obtain a promise

against a vacancy; which, at this great open moment nobody will

think of asking, when the present is so uppermost in their minds:

and now my head is cool, perhaps I could strike out more

channels, should your sister be so inclined. But of that we will

talk when we meet.

Thursday.

I have received the second letter that I expected, and it makes

me quite happy on all the points that disquieted me; on the

court, on the tempest, and I hope on privateers, as you have so

little time to stay on Ararat, and the winds that terrify me for

you, will, I trust, be as formidable to them. Above, all, I

rejoice at your approaching return; on which I would not say a

syllable seriously, not only because I would have you please

yourselves, but that you may profit as much as possible by change

of air. I retract all my mistake; and though, perhaps, I may

have floundered on with regard to A., still I have not time to

correct or write any part of it over again. Besides, every word

was the truth of my heart; and why should not you see what is or

was in it? Adieu!

(891) This alludes to a wish he supposed Miss Berry to have had

for a nomination in the household of Caroline Princess of Wales,

then forming.-M.B.

(892) Lord Cholmondeley, then residing in the Isle of Thanet.

Letter 417To The Miss Berrys.

October 17, 1794. (page 563)

I had not the least doubt of Mr. Barrett's showing you the

greatest attention: he is a most worthy man, and has a most

sincere friendship for me, and I was sure would mark to any

persons that I love. I do not guess what your criticisms on his

library will be: I do not think we shall agree in them; for to me

it is the most perfect thing I ever saw, and has the most the air

it was intended to have--that of an abbot's library, supposing it

could have been so exquisitely finished three hundred years ago.

But I am sorry he will not force Mr. Wyat to place the Mabeuse

over the chimney; which is the sole defect, as not distinguished

enough for the principal feature of the room. My closet is as

perfect in its way as the library; and it would be difficult to

suspect that it had not been a remnant of the ancient convent,

only newly painted and gilt. My cabinet, nay, nor house, convey

any conception; every true Goth must perceive that they are more

the works of fancy than of imitation.

I believe the less that our opinions will coincide, as you speak

so slightingly of the situation of Lee, which I admire. What a

pretty circumstance is the little river! and so far from the

position being insipid, to me it has a tranquil cheerfulness that

harmonizes with the house, and seems to have been the judicious

selection of a wealthy abbot, who avoided ostentation, but did

not choose austere gloomth. I do not say that Lee is as gay as a

watering-place upon a naked beach. I am very glad, and much

obliged to you for having consented to pass the night at Lee. I

am sure it made Mr. Barrett very happy. I shall let him know how

pleased you was; and I too, for his attentions to you.

The mass of politics is so inauspicious, that if I tapped it, I

should not finish my letter for the post, and my reflections

would not contribute to your amusement; which I should be sorry

to interrupt, and -which I beg you to pursue as long as it is

agreeable to you. It is satisfaction enough to me to know you

are happy; and it is my study to make you so, as far as my little

power can extend: and, as I promised you on your Condescension in

leaving Italy at my prayer, I will never object to whatever you

like to do, and will accept, and Wait with patience for, any

moments you will bestow on your devoted Orford.

Letter 418 To The Rev. William Beloe.(893)

Strawberry Hill, Dec. 2, 1794. (page 564)

I do beg and beseech you, good Sir, to forgive me, if I cannot

possibly consent to receive the dedication you are so kind and

partial as to propose to me. I have in the most positive, and

almost uncivil manner, refused a dedication or two lately.

Compliments on virtues which the persons addressed, like me,

seldom possessed, are happily exploded and laughed out of use.

Next to being ashamed of having good qualities bestowed on me to

which I should have no title, it would hurt to be praised on my

erudition, which is most superficial; and on my trifling

writings, all of which turn on most trifling subjects. They

amused me while writing them; may have amused a few persons; but

have nothing solid enough to preserve them from being forgotten

with other things of as light a nature. I Would not have your

judgment called in question hereafter, if somebody reading your

Aulus Gellius should ask, "What were those writings of Lord O.

which Mr. Beloe so much commends? Was Lord O. more than one of

the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease?" Into that class I

must sink; and I had rather do so imperceptibly, than to be

plunged down to it by the interposition of the hand of a friend,

who could not gainsay the sentence.

For your own sake, my good Sir, as well as in pity to my

feelings, who am sore at your offering what I cannot accept,

restrain the address to a mere inscription. You are allowed to

be an excellent translator of classic authors; how unclassic

would a dedication in the old-fashioned manner appear! If you had

published a new edition of Herodotus or Aulus Gellius, would you

have ventured to prefix a Greek or Latin dedication to some

modern lord with a Gothic title'! Still less, had those addresses

been in vogue at Rome,. would any Roman author have inscribed

his work to Marcus, the incompetent son of Cicero, and told the

unfortunate offspring of so great a man, Of his high birth and

declension of ambition? which would have excited a laugh on poor

Marcus, who, whatever may have been said of him, had more sense

than to leave proofs to the public of his extreme inferiority to

his father.

(893) Rector of Allhallows, London Wall, prebendary of Pancras in

St. Paul's cathedral, and prebendary of Lincoln. In 1791, be

published a translation of Herodotus, and in 1795, the

translation of the "Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius," referred to

in the above letter. He was also the author of " Anecdotes of

Literature and Scarce Books," in six volumes octavo; and after

his death, which took place in 1817, appeared "The Sexagenarian,

or Recollections of a Literary Life;" which, though a posthumous

publication, was printed under his inspection.-E.

Letter 419 To Miss Hannah More.

Berkeley Square, Saturday night, Jan. 24, 1795. (page 565)

My best Madam,

I will never more complain of your silence; for I am perfectly

convinced that you have no idle, no unemployed moments. Your

indefatigable benevolence is incessantly occupied in good works;

and your head and your heart make the utmost use of the excellent

qualities of both. You have given proofs of the talents of one,

and you certainly do not wrap the still more precious talent of

the other in a napkin. Thank you a thousand times for your most

ingenious plan; may great success reward you! I sent one

instantly to the Duchess of Gloucester, whose piety and zeal

imitate yours at a distance: but she says she cannot afford to

subscribe just at this severe moment, when the poor so much want

her assistance, but she will on the thaw, and should have been

flattered by receiving a plan from yourself. I sent another to

Lord Harcourt, who, I trust, will show it to a much greater lady;

and I repeated some of the facts you told me of the foul fiends,

and their anti-More activity. I sent to Mr. White for half a

dozen more of your plans, and will distribute them wherever I

have hopes of their taking root and blossoming. To-morrow I will

send him my subscription;(894) and I flatter myself you will not

think it a breach of Sunday, nor will I make this long, that I

may not widen that fracture. Good night! How calm and

comfortable must your slumbers be on the pillow of every day's

good deeds!

Monday.

Yesterday was as dark as midnight. Oh! that it may be the

darkest day in all respects that we shall see! But these are

themes too voluminous and dismal for a letter, and which your

zeal tells me you feel too intensely for me to increase, when you

are doing all in your power to counteract them. One of my

grievances is, that the sanguinary inhumanity Of the times has

almost poisoned one's compassion, and makes one abhor so many

thousands of our own species, and rejoice when they suffer for

their crimes. I could feel no pity on reading the account of the

death of Condorcet (if true, though I doubt it). He was one of

the greatest monsters exhibited by history; and is said to have

poisoned himself from famine and fear of the guillotine; and

would be a new instance of what I suggested to you for a tract,

to show, that though we must not assume a pretension to judging

of divine judgments, yet we may believe that the economy of

Providence has so disposed causes and consequences, that such

villains as Danton, Robespierre, the Duke of Orleans, etc. etc.

etc. do but dig pits for themselves. I will check myself, or I

shall wander into the sad events of the last five years, down to

the rage of party that has sacrificed Holland! What a fund for

reflection and prophetic apprehension! May we have as much wisdom

and courage to stem our malevolent enemies, as it is plain, to

our lasting honour, we have had charity to the French emigrants,

and have bounty for the poor who are suffering in this dreadful

season!

Adieu! thou excellent woman! thou reverse of that hyena in

petticoats, Mrs. Wolstoncroft, who to this day discharges her ink

and gall on Marie Antoinette, whose unparalleled sufferings have

not Yet stanched that Alecto's blazing ferocity. Adieu! adieu!

Yours from my heart.

P. S. I have subscribed five guineas at Mr. White's to your plan.

(894) To the fund for promoting the printing and dispersion of

the works sold at the Cheap Repository.

Letter 420 To Miss Hannah More.

Berkeley Square, Feb. 13, 1795. (page 566)

I received your letter and packet of lays and virelays, and

heartily wish they may fall in bad ground, and produce a hundred

thousand fold, as I doubt is necessary. How I admire the

activity of your zeal and perseverance! Should a new church ever

be built, I hope in a side chapel there will be an altar

dedicated to St. Hannah, Virgin and Martyr; and that Your pen,

worn to the bone, will be enclosed in a golden reliquaire, and

preserved on the shrine.

These few words I have been forced to dictate, having had the

gout ill my right hand above this fortnight; but I trust it is

going off The Duchess was much pleased with your writing to her,

and ordered me to thank you. Your friend Lady Waldegrave is in

town, and looks very well. Adieu, best of women! Yours most

cordially.(895)

(895) In a letter to her sister, dated from Fulham Palace, Miss

More says,--"Lord Orford has presented me with Bishop Wilson's

edition of the Bible, in three volumes quarto, superbly bound in

morocco (Oh! that he would himself study that blessed book), to

which, in the following most flattering inscription, he

attributes my having done far more good than is true--

"To his excellent friend, MISS HANNAH MORE, THE BOOK,

which he knows to be the dearest object of her study, and by

which, to the great comfort and relief

of numberless afflicted and distressed individuals,

she has profited beyond any person with whom he is acquainted, is

offered, as a mark of his esteem and gratitude, by her sincere

and obliged humble servant, Horace, Earl of Orford, 1795."

Letter 421 To William Roscoe, Esq.

Berkeley Square, April 4, 1795. (page 567)

To judge of my satisfaction and gratitude on receiving the very

acceptable present of your book,(896) Sir, you should have known

my extreme impatience for it from the instant Mr. Edwards had

kindly favoured me with the first chapters. You may consequently

conceive the mortification I felt at not being able to thank you

immediately both for the volume and the obliging letter that

accompanied it, by my right arm and hand being swelled and

rendered quite immovable and useless, of which you will perceive

the remains if you can read these lines which I am forcing myself

to write, not without pain, the first moment I have power to hold

'a pen; and it will cost me some time, I believe, before I can

finish my whole letter, earnest as I am, Sir, to give a loose to

my gratitude.

If you ever had the pleasure of reading such a delightful book as

your own, imagine, Sir, what a comfort it must be to receive such

an anodyne in the midst of a fit of the gout that has already

lasted above nine weeks, and which at first I thought might carry

me to Lorenzo de' Medici before he should come to me.

The complete volume has more than answered the expectations which

the sample had raised. The Grecian simplicity of the style is

preserved throughout; the same judicious candour reigns in every

page; and without allowing yourself that liberty of indulging

your own bias towards good or against criminal characters, which

over-rigid critics prohibit, your artful candour compels your

readers to think with you, without seeming to take a part

yourself. You have shown from his own virtues, abilities, and

heroic spirit, why Lorenzo deserved to have Mr. Roscoe for his

biographer. And since you have been so, Sir, (for he was not

completely known before, at least out of Italy,) I shall be

extremely mistaken if he is not henceforth allowed to be, in

various lights, one of the most excellent and greatest men with

whom we are well acquainted, especially if we reflect on the

shortness of his life and the narrow sphere in which he had to

act. Perhaps I ought to blame my own ignorance, that I did not

know Lorenzo as a beautiful poet: I confess I did not. Now I do,

I own I admire some of his sonnets more than several-yes, even of

Petrarch; for Lorenzo's are frequently more clear, less

alembiquis, and not inharmonious as Petrarch's often are from

being too crowded with words, for which room is made by numerous

elisions, which prevent the softening alternacy of vowels and

consonants. That thicket of words was occasioned by the

embarrassing nature of the sonnet: a form of composition I do not

love, and which is almost intolerable in any language but

Italian, which furnishes such a profusion of rhymes. To our

tongue the sonnet is mortal, and the parent of insipidity. The

Mutation in some degree of it was extremely noxious to a true

poet, our Spenser; and he was the more injudicious by lengthening

his stanza in a language so barren of rhymes as ours, and in

which several words, whose terminations are of similar sounds,

are so rugged, uncouth, and unmusical. The consequence was, that

many lines which he forced into the service to complete the quota

of his stanza are unmeaning, or silly, or tending to weaken the

thought he would express.

Well, Sir: but if you have led me to admire the compositions of

Lorenzo, you have made me intimate with another poet, of whom I

had never heard nor had the least suspicion; and who, though

writing in a less harmonious language than Italian, outshines an

able master of that country, as may be estimated by the fairest

of all comparisons -which is, when one of each nation versifies

the same ideas and thoughts. That novel poet I boldly pronounce

is Mr. Roscoe. Several of his translations of' Lorenzo are

superior to the originals, and the verses more poetic; nor am I

bribed to give this opinion by the present of your book, nor by

any partiality, nor by the surprise of finding so pure a writer

of history as able a poet. Some good judges to whom I have shown

your translations entirely agree with me. I will name one most

competent judge, Mr. Hoole, so admirable a poet himself, and such

a critic in Italian, as he has proved by a translation of

Ariosto. That I am not flattering you, Sir, I will demonstrate;

for I am not satisfied with one essential line in your version of

the most beautiful, I think, of all Lorenzo's stanzas. It is his

description of Jealousy, in page 268, equal, in my humble

opinion, to Dryden's delineations of the Passions, and the last

line of which is--

Mai dorme, ed ostinata, a se sol crede.

The thought to me is quite new, and your translation I own does

not come up to it. Mr. Hoole and I hammered at it, but could not

content ourselves. Perhaps by altering your last couplet you may

enclose the whole sense, and make it equal to the preceding six.

I will not ask your pardon, Sir, for taking so much liberty with

you. You have displayed so much candour and are so free from

pretensions, that I am confident you will allow that truth is the

sole ingredient that ought to compose deserved incense; and if

ever commendation was sincere, no praise ever flowed with purer

veracity than all I have said in this letter does from the heart

of, Sir, your infinitely obliged humble servant.

(896) His History of the Life of Lorenzo de' Medici.

Letter 422 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, July 2, 1795. (page 569)

I will write a word to you, though scarce time to write one, to

thank you for your great kindness about the soldier, who shall

get a substitute if he can. As you are, or have been in town,

your daughter will have told you in what a bustle I am,

preparing--not to resist, but, to receive an invasion of

royalties to-morrow; and cannot even escape them like Admiral

Cornwallis, though seeming to make a semblance; for I am to wear

a sword, and have appointed two aides-de-camp, My nephews, George

and Horace Churchill. If I fall, as ten to one but I do, to be

sure it will be a superb tumble, at the feet of a Queen and eight

daughters of Kings; for, besides the six Princesses, I am to have

the Duchess of York and the Princess of Orange! Wo is me, at

seventy-eight, and with scarce a hand and foot to my back! Adieu!

Yours, etc. A poor old remnant.

Letter 423 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, July 7, 1795. (page 569)

I am not dead of fatigue with my royal visitors, as I expected to

be, though I was on my poor lame feet three whole hours. Your

daughter, who kindly assisted me in doing the honours, will tell

you the particulars, and how prosperously I succeeded. The Queen

was uncommonly condescending and gracious, and deigned to drink

my health when I presented her with the last glass, and to thank

me for all my attentions. Indeed my memory de la vieille cour

was but once in default. As I had been assured that her Majesty

would be attended by her chamberlain, yet was not, I had no glove

ready when I received her at the step of her coach: yet she

honoured me with her hand to lead her up stairs; nor did I

recollect my omission when I led her down again. Still, though

gloveless, I (fid not squeeze the royal hand, as Vice-chamberlain

Smith did to Queen Mary.(897)

You will have stared, as I did, at the Elector of Hanover

deserting his ally the King of Great Britain, and making peace

with the monsters. But Mr. Fawkener, whom I saw at my sister's

on Sunday, laughs at the article in the newspapers, and says it

is not an unknown practice for stock-jobbers to have an emissary

at the rate of five hundred pounds, and despatch to Frankfort,

whence he brings forged attestations of some marvellous political

event, and spreads it on 'Change, which produces such a

fluctuation in the stocks as amply overpays the expense of his

mission.

This was all I learnt in the single night I was In town. I have

not read the new French constitution, which seems longer than

probably its reign will be. The five sovereigns will, I suppose,

be the first guillotined. Adieu! Yours ever.

(897) It is said that Queen Mary asked some of her attendant

ladies what a squeeze of the hand was supposed to intimate. They

said "Love." "Then," said the Queen, "my Vice-chamberlain must

be violently in love with me, for he always squeezes my hand."

Letter 424 To Miss Berry.

Strawberry Hill, Tuesday, Aug. 16, 1796. (page 570)

Though I this morning received your Sunday's full letter, it is

three o'clock before I have a moment to begin answering it; and

must do it myself: for Kirgate is not at home. First came in Mr.

Barrett, and then Cosway, who has been for some days at Mr.

Udney's, with his wife: she is so afflicted for her only little

girl, that she shut herself up in her chamber, and would not be

seen.(898) The man Cosway does not seem to think that much of

the loss belonged to him: he romanced with his usual vivacity.

Next arrived Dr. Burney, on his way to Mrs. Boscawen. He asked

me about deplorable "Camilla." Alas! I had not recovered of it

enough to be loud in its praise. I am glad, however, to hear

that she has realized about two thousand pounds; and the worth,

no doubt, of as much in honours at Windsor; where she was

detained three days, and where even M. D'Arblay was allowed to

dine.

I rejoice at your bathing promising so well. If the beautiful

fugitive(899) from Brighthelmstone dips too, the waves will be

still more salutary:--

Venus, orta mari, mare prestat eunti.

I like your going to survey castles and houses: it is wholesomer

than drawing and writing tomes of letters;--which, you see, I

cannot do.

Wednesday, after breakfast.

When I came home from Lady Mendip's last night, I attempted to

finish this myself; but my poor fingers were so tired by all the

work of the day, that it will require Sir William Jones's gift of

tongues to interpret my pot-hooks. One would think Arabic

characters were catching; for Agnes had shown me a volume of

their poems, finely printed at Cambridge, with a version which

Mrs. Douglas had lent to her, and said they were very simple, and

not in the inflated style of the last. You shall judge: in the

first page I opened, I found a storm of lightning that had burst

into a laugh. I resume the thread of my letter. You had not

examined Arundel Castle enough; for you do not mention the noble

monuments, in alabaster, of the Fitz-Alans, one of whom bragged

of having married Adeliza, widow of Henry the First. In good

sooth, they were somewhat defaced by Cromwell having mounted his

cannon on the roof to batter the Castle; of which, when I saw it,

he had left little but ruins; and they were choked up by a vile

modern brick house, which I know Solomon has pulled down: for he

came hither two years ago to consult me about Gothicizing his

restoration of the castle. I recommended Mr. Wyat, lest he

should copy the temple of Jerusalem.

So you found a picture of your predecessor!(900) She had had a

good figure: but I had rather it had been a portrait of her aunt,

Mrs. Arabella Fermor, the heroine of the Lock, of whom I never

saw a resemblance. You did not, I suppose, see the giant, who,

the old Duke told me, used to walk among the ruins, but who, to

be sure, Duke Solomon(901) has laid in a Red Sea of claret.

There are other splendid seats to be seen within your reach; as

Petworth, and Standstead, and Up-Park: but I know why I guess

that you may even be of parties, more than once, at the last.

As Agnes says, she has promised I should give you an account of a

visit I have lately had, I will, if I have time, before any body

comes in. It was from a Mr. Pentycross, a clergyman and

schoolmaster of Wallingford, of whom I had heard nothing for

eight-and-twenty years; and then having only known him as a

Blue-coat boy from Kingston: and how that happened, he gave me

this account last week. He was born with a poetic impetus, and

walked over hither with a copy of verses by no means despicable,

which he begged old Margaret to bring up to me. She refused; he

supplicated. At last she told him that her master was very

learned, and that, if he would write something in the learned

languages, especially in French, she would present his poem to

me. In the mean time, she yielded; I saw him, and let her show

him the house. I think he sent me an ode or two afterwards, and

I never heard his name again till this winter, when I received a

letter from him from his place' of residence, with high

compliments on some of my editions, and beseeching me to give him

a print of myself, which I did send to him. In the Christmas

holidays he came to town for a few days, and called in

Berkeley-square; but it was when I was too ill to see any body.

He then left a modest and humble letter, only begging that, some

time or other, I would give him leave to see Strawberry Hill. I

sent him a note by Kirgate, that should he come to town in

summer, and I should be well enough, he should certainly see my

house. Accordingly, about a fortnight ago, I let him know, that

if he could fix any day in this month, I would give him a dinner

and a bed. He jumped at the offer, named Wednesday last, and

came. However, I considered that to pass a whole day with this

unknown being might be rather too much. I got Lysons, the

parson, from Putney, to meet him: but it would not have been

necessary, for I found my Blue-coat boy grown to be a very

sensible, rational, learned, and remaining a most modest

personage, with an excellent taste for poetry-for he is an

enthusiast for Dr. Darwin: but, alas! infinitely too learned for

me; for in the evening, upon questioning him about his own vein

of poetry, he humbly drew out a paper, with proposition

forty-seven of Euclid turned into Latin verse. I shrunk back and

cried, "Oh! dear Sir, how little you know me! I have forgotten

almost the little Latin I knew, and was always so incapable of

learning mathematics, that I could not even get by heart the

multiplication-table, as blind Professor Sanderson honestly told

me, above threescore years ago, when I went to his lectures at

Cambridge." After the first fortnight, he said to Me, "Young man,

it would be cheating you to take your money; for you can never

learn what I am trying to teach you." I was exceedingly

mortified, and cried; for, being a prime minister's son, I had

firmly believed all the flattery with which I had been assured

that my parts were capable of any thing. I paid a private

instructor for a year; but, at the year's end, was forced to own

Sanderson had been in the right; and here luckily ends, with my

paper, my Penticrusade!

(898) The loss of her only child threw Mrs. Cosway upon art once

more. To mitigate her grief, she painted several large Pictures

for chapels; and afterwards visited Italy, where she formed a

college at Lodi for the education of young ladies. On the

establishment of peace, she returned to England, where she

remained till the death of her husband in 1821; after which she

returned to Lodi.-E.

(899) The Countess of Jersey, mother to the present Earl.

(900) A portrait of Trefusis, Countess of Orford, widow of the

eldest brother of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford.

(901) Charles Howard, eleventh Duke of Norfolk, so called by Lord

Orford, for having his portrait executed in painted glass for the

window of his great dining-room, at Arundel Castle, as Solomon

entertaining the Queen of Sheba.

Letter 425 To Miss Berry.

Strawberry Hill, August 24, 1796. (page 572)

Bathe on, bathe on, and wash away all your complaints; the sea

air and such an oriental season must cure every thing but

positive decay and decrepitude. On me they have no more effect

than they would have on an Egyptian queen who has been embowelled

and reserved in her sycamore etui ever since dying was first

invented, and people notwithstanding liked to last for ever,

though even in a pyramid. In short, Mr. -- has teased me so much

about jumbling my relics, that I have aired(902) them every

morning in the coach for this fortnight; and yet, you see, I

cannot write ten lines together! Lady Cecilia lets me call on

her at twelve, and take her with me: and yet I grew tired of it,

and shall not have patience to continue, but shall remain, I

believe, in my mummyhood. I begin by giving myself a holiday

to-day, in order to answer your letter of the 21st; while Lady

Waldegrave, who is with me, and who has brought her eldest son,

whom, poor soul! she cannot yet bear to call Lord Waldegrave, is

gone to the pavilion. Here is a letter for you from Hannah More,

unsealed indeed, for chiefly a mon intention. Be so good as to

tell her how little I am really recovered but that I will hammer

out a few words as fast, that is, as slowly as I can to her, in

return.

I am scandalized at the slovenly neglect of the brave chapel of

the Fitz-Alans.(903) I thought the longer any peer's genealogy

had been spun out, the prouder he was of the most ancient

coronets in it; but since Solomon despises the Arundels for not

having been dukes, I suppose he does not acknowledge Adam for a

relation; who, though he had a tolerably numerous progeny, his

grace does not allow to have been the patriarch of the Mowbrays

and Howards, as the devil did not make Eve a duchess, though he

has made the wives of some other folks so, and may propose to

make one more so some time or other.

News I have none; but that Wurmsur seems to have put a little

spoke into the wheel of the French triumphal car in Italy: and as

those banditti have deigned to smile on the Duke of Wirtemberg, I

suppose they mean to postpone imposing a heavy contribution on

him till he shall have received the fortune of the Princess

Royal. Adieu!

(902) The remainder of this letter is in the handwriting of

Kirgate.

(903) In Arundel church. It has since been put in a state of

repair by the present Duke of Norfolk.

Letter 426 To Miss Hannah More.

Strawberry Hill, August 29, 1796. (page 573)

You are not only the most beneficent, but the most benevolent of

human beings. Not content with being a perfect saint yourself,

which (forgive me for saying) does not always imply prodigious

compassion for others; not satisfied with being the most

disinterested, nay, the reverse of all patriots, for you

sacrifice your very slender fortune, not to improve it, but to

keep the poor honest instead of corrupting them; and you write

politics as simply, intelligibly, and unartfolly, not as

cunningly as you can to mislead. Well, with all these giant

virtues, you can find room and time in your heart and occupations

for harbouring and exercising what those monkeys of pretensions,

the French, invented and called les petites morales, which were

to supply society with filigrain duties, in the room of all

virtues, which they abolished on their road to the adoption of

philosophy and atheism. Yes, though for ever busied in

exercising services and charities for individuals, or for whole

bodies of people, you do not leave a cranny empty into which you

can slip a kindness. Your inquiry after me to Miss Berry is so

friendly, that I cannot trust solely to her thanking you for your

letter, as I am sure she will, having sent it to her as she is

bathing in the sea at Bognor Rocks; but I must with infinite

gratitude give you

a brief account of myself-a very poor one indeed must I give.

Condemned as a cripple to my couch for the rest of my days I

doubt I am. Though perfectly healed, and even without a sear, my

leg is so weakened that I have not recovered the least use of it,

nor can move cross my chamber unless lifted up and held by two

servants. This constitutes me totally a prisoner. But why

should not I be so? What business had I to live to the brink of

seventy-nine? And why should One litter the world at that age?

Then, I thank God, I have vast blessings; I have preserved my

eyes, ears, and teeth; I have no pain left; and I would bet with

any dormouse that it cannot outsleep me. And when one can afford

to pay for every relief, comfort, or assistance that can be

procured at fourscore, dares one complain? Must not one reflect

on the thousands of old poor, who are suffering martyrdom, and

have none of these alleviations? my good friend, I must consider

myself as at my best; for if' I drag on a little longer, can I

expect to remain even so tolerably. Nay, does the world present

a pleasing scene? Are not the devils escaped out of the swine,

and overrunning the earth headlong? What a theme for meditation,

that the excellent humane Louis Seize should have been prevented

from saving himself by that monster Drouet, and that that

execrable wretch should be saved even by those, some of whom one

may suppose he meditated to massacre; for at what does a

Frenchman stop? But I will quit this shocking subject, and for

another reason too: I omitted one of my losses, almost the use of

my fingers: they are so lame that I cannot write a dozen lines

legibly, but am forced to have recourse to my secretary. I will

only reply by a word or two to a question you seem to ask; how I

like "Camilla?" I do not care to say how little. Alas! she has

reversed experience, which I have long', thought reverses its own

utility by coming at the wrong end of our life when we do not

want it. This author knew the world and penetrated characters

before she had stepped over the threshold; and, now she has seen

so much of it, she has little or no insight at all perhaps she

apprehended having seen too much, and kept the bags of foul air

that she brought from the Cave of Tempests too closely tied.

Adieu, thou who mightest be one of the cleverest of women if thou

didst not prefer being one of the best! And when I say one of the

best, I have not engaged my vote for the second. Yours most

gratefully.

Letter 427 To Richard Gough, Esq.

Berkeley Square, Dec. 5, 1796. (page 574)

Dear Sir,

Being struck with the extreme cold of last week, it has brought a

violent gouty inflammation into one of my legs, and I was forced

to be instantly brought to town very ill. As soon as I was a

little recovered, I found here your most magnificent present of

the second volume of Sepulchral Monuments, the most splendid work

I ever saw, and which I congratulate myself on having lived long

enough to see. Indeed, I congratulate my country on its

appearance exactly at so illustrious a moment, when the

patriotism and zeal of London have exhibited so astonishing marks

of their opulence and attachment to the constitution, by a

voluntary subscription of seventeen millions of money in three

days. Your book, Sir, appearing, at that very instant, will be a

monument of a fact so unexampled in history; the treasure of fine

prints with which it is stowed, well becomes such a production

and such a work, the expense of which becomes it too. I am

impatient to be able to sit up and examine it more, and am sure

my gratitude will increase in proportion. As soon as I shall

receive the complete sheets, I will have the whole work bound in

the most superb manner that can be: and though, being so infirm

now, and just entered into my eightieth year, I am not likely to

wait on you, and thank you, I shall be happy to have an

opportunity, whenever you come this way, of telling you in person

how much I am charmed with so splendid a monument of British

glories, and which will be so proud an ornament to the libraries

of any nation.

Letter 428 To Miss Berry.

Thursday, December 15, past noon, 1796. (page 575)

I had no account of you at all yesterday, but in Mrs. Damer's

letter, which was rather better than the preceding; nor have I

had any letter before post to-day, as you promised me in hers. I

had, indeed, a humorous letter from a puss that is about your

house,(904) which is more comfortable; as I think she would not

have written cheerfully if you had not been in a good way. I

would answer it, but I am grown a dull old Tabby, and have no

"Quips and cranks and wanton wiles" left; but I shall be glad to

see her when she follows you to town, which I earnestly hope will

not pass Saturday. My horses will be with you on Friday night.

The House of Commons sat till half an hour after three this

morning, on Mr. Pitt's loan to the Emperor; when it was approved

by a majority of above two hundred. Mr. Fox was more temperate

than was expected; Mr. Grey did not speak; Mr. Sheridan was very

entertaining: several were convinced and voted for Mr. Pitt, who

had gone down determined against it. The Prince came to town

t'other day ill, was blooded twice, but has now a strong eruption

upon his skin, which will probably be of great service to him.

Sir Charles Blagden has been with the Duchess of Devonshire, and

found her much better than he expected. Her look is little

altered: she suffers but little, and finds herself benefited by

being electrified.

I have received a compliment to-day very little expected by a

superannuated old Etonian. Two tickets from the gentlemen of

Westminster School, for their play on Monday next. I excused

myself as civilly and respectfully as I could, on my utter

impossibility of attending them. Adieu! I hope this will be the

last letter I shall write before I See you.(905)

(904) This was written by Miss Salon, in the name of a kitten at

Little Strawberry Hill, with whose gambols Lord Orford had been

much amused.-M.B.

(905) Very soon after the date of the above letter, the gout, the

attacks of which were every day becoming more frequent and

longer, made those with whom Lord Orford was living at strawberry

Hill very anxious that he should remove to Berkeley Square, to be

nearer assistance, in case of any sudden seizure. As his

correspondents, soon after his removal, were likewise established

in London, no more letters passed between them. When not

immediately suffering from pain, his mind was tranquil and

cheerful. He was still capable of being amused. and of taking

some part in conversation: but, during the last weeks of his

life, when fever was superadded to his other ills, his mind

became subject to the cruel hallucination of supposing himself

neglected and abandoned by the only persons to whom his memory

clung, and whom he desired always to see. In vain they recalled

to his recollection how recently they had left him, and how short

had been their absence: it satisfied him for the moment, but the

same idea recurred as soon as he had lost sight of them. At

last, nature sinking under the exhaustion of weakness,

obliterated all ideas but those of mere existence, which ended,

without a struggle, on the 2d of March 1797.-M.B.

Letter 429 To The Countess Of Ossory.

January 13, 1797. (page 576)

You distress me infinitely by showing my idle notes, which I

cannot conceive can amuse any body. My old-fashioned breeding

impels me every now and then to reply to the letters you honour

me with writing; but in truth very unwillingly, for I seldom

can have any thing particular to say. I scarce go out of my own

house, and then only to two or three very private places, where I

see nobody that really know's any thing; apd. what I learn

comes from newspapers, that collect intelligence from

coffee-houses--consequently, what I neither believe nor

report. At home I see only a few charitable elders, except

about fourscore nephews and nieces of various ages, who are each

brought to me once a year, to stare at me as the Methusalem of

the family; and they can only speak of their own contemporaries,

which interest no more than if they talked of their dolls, or

bats and balls. Must not the result of all this, Madam, make me a

very entertaining correspondent? and can such letters be worth

showing? or can I have any spirit when so old, and reduced to

dictate? Oh! my good Madam, dispense with me from such a task,

and think how it must add to it to apprehend such letters being

shown. Pray send Me no more Such laurels, which I desire no more

than their leaves when decked with a scrap of tinsel, and stuck

on twelfth-cakes that lie on the shop boards of pastrycooks at

Christmas. I shall be quite content with a sprig

of rosemary thrown after me, when the parson of the parish

commits my dust to dust. Till then, pray, Madam, accept the

resignation of your ancient servant, Orford.