The Gout.--Visits to Paris.--Bath.--John Wesley.--Bad
Weather.--English Summers.--Quitting Parliament.--Madame
du Deffand.--Human Vanity.--The Banks of the Thames.--A
Subscription Masquerade.--Extravagance of the Age.--The
Pantheon.--Visiting Stowe with Princess Amelia.--George
Montagu.--The Countess of Ossory.--Powder-Mills Blown up at
Hounslow.--Distractions of Business and Pleasure.
Walpole’s acquaintance with the gout began before he had reached
his fortieth year. Its earliest approaches he received without much
discomposure. His chief reason, he said, for objecting to “this
alderman distemper” was that he could show no title to it. “If either
my father or mother had had it, I should not dislike it so much. I am
herald enough to approve it if descended genealogically; but it is an
absolute upstart in me, and what is more provoking, I had trusted to
my great abstinence for keeping me from it: but thus it is, if I had
any gentleman-like virtue, as patriotism or loyalty, I might have got
something by them; I had nothing but that beggarly virtue temperance,
and she had not interest enough to keep me from a fit of the gout.”
By degrees, however, the attacks of his enemy became too severe to
be dismissed with pleasantries like these. In the summer of 1765,
he was prostrated by a seizure which held him prisoner for several
weeks. On recovering about the middle of September, he undertook
a journey to Paris, partly to recruit his strength, and partly in
execution of a long-formed design. He remained in the French capital
till the following spring, mixing much in the society of the place,
and doing ample justice to the wit and grace of Frenchwomen, but
shrinking from and detesting the French philosophers.[42] During this
period was formed his friendship with Madame du Deffand, his “dear
old blind woman,” as he often calls her, with whom, after his return
to England, he maintained a weekly correspondence for the rest of her
life. Altogether, he derived so much pleasure from his visit, that he
repeated it every alternate summer down to that of 1771; and we find
him in Paris again in 1775.
He had another illness in the middle of 1766, for which he tried the
Bath waters; but Bath proved not at all to his taste, though he met the
great Lord Chatham there, and many other persons of distinction. “These
watering-places,” he says, “that mimic a capital, and add vulgarisms
and familiarities of their own, seem to me like abigails in cast gowns,
and I am not young enough to take up with either.” Finding himself
dull at Bath, he attended a Wesleyan service, of which he gives a
somewhat flippant description:
“My health advances faster than my amusement. However, I have
been at one opera, Mr. Wesley’s. They have boys and girls with
charming voices, that sing hymns, in parts, to Scotch ballad
tunes; but indeed so long, that one would think they were
already in eternity, and knew how much time they had before
them. The chapel is very neat, with true Gothic windows (yet
I am not converted); but I was glad to see that luxury is
creeping in upon them before persecution: they have very neat
mahogany stands for branches, and brackets of the same in
taste. At the upper end is a broad _hautpas_ of four steps,
advancing in the middle: at each end of the broadest part are
two of _my_ eagles,[43] with red cushions for the parson and
clerk. Behind them rise three more steps, in the midst of which
is a third eagle for pulpit. Scarlet armed chairs to all three.
On either hand, a balcony for elect ladies. The rest of the
congregation sit on forms. Behind the pit, in a dark niche,
is a plain table within rails; so you see the throne is for
the apostle. Wesley is a lean elderly man, fresh-coloured, his
hair smoothly combed, but with a _soupçon_ of curl at the ends.
Wondrous clean, but as evidently an actor as Garrick. He spoke
his sermon, but so fast, and with so little accent, that I am
sure he has often uttered it, for it was like a lesson. There
were parts and eloquence in it; but towards the end he exalted
his voice, and acted very ugly enthusiasm; decried learning,
and told stories, like Latimer, of the fool of his college,
who said, ‘I _thanks_ God for everything.’ Except a few from
curiosity, and _some honourable women_, the congregation was
very mean. There was a Scotch Countess of Buchan, who is
carrying a pure rosy vulgar face to heaven, and who asked Miss
Rich, if that was _the author of the poets_. I believe she
meant me and the Noble Authors.”
Walpole was in a peevish humour about this time. He was out of
health, and dispirited besides by an apprehension that the climate
of Twickenham did not suit him. Thus he writes from Strawberry Hill:
“What afflicts me most is, that I am persuaded that this place is too
damp for me. I revive after being in London an hour, like a member of
Parliament’s wife. It will be a cruel fate, after having laid out so
much money here, and building upon it as the nest of my old age, if I
am driven from it by bad health.” Unfavourable weather seems to have
been in some measure the cause of these fears, and of the writer’s
disordered condition. Though the harvest-time of 1766 was fine, the
crops, we are told, had been spoilt by previous rains, and the years
which followed were a cycle of wet and cold seasons. Walpole grumbles
at the weather with English vigour and French vivacity. Thus he writes
to Montagu, in June, 1768:
“I perceive the deluge fell upon you before it reached us.
It began here but on Monday last, and then rained near
eight-and-forty hours without intermission. My poor hay has
not a dry thread to its back. I have had a fire these three
days. In short, every summer one lives in a state of mutiny
and murmur, and I have found the reason: it is because we will
affect to have a summer, and we have no title to any such
thing. Our poets learnt their trade of the Romans, and so
adopted the terms of their masters. They talk of shady groves,
purling streams, and cooling breezes, and we get sore throats
and agues with attempting to realize these visions. Master
Damon writes a song, and invites Miss Chloe to enjoy the cool
of the evening, and never a bit have we of any such thing as
a cool evening. Zephyr is a north-east wind, that makes Damon
button up to the chin, and pinches Chloe’s nose till it is red
and blue; and then they cry, _This is a bad summer!_ as if we
ever had any other. The best sun we have is made of Newcastle
coal, and I am determined never to reckon upon any other. We
ruin ourselves with inviting over foreign trees, and making our
houses clamber up hills to look at prospects. How our ancestors
would laugh at us, who knew there was no being comfortable,
unless you had a high hill before your nose, and a thick warm
wood at your back! Taste is too freezing a commodity for us,
and, depend upon it, will go out of fashion again.--There is
indeed a natural warmth in this country, which, as you say,
I am very glad not to enjoy any longer; I mean the hot-house
in St. Stephen’s chapel. My own sagacity makes me very vain,
though there was very little merit in it. I had seen so much of
all parties, that I had little esteem left for any; it is most
indifferent to me who is in or who is out, or which is set in
the pillory, Mr. Wilkes or my Lord Mansfield. I see the country
going to ruin, and no man with brains enough to save it. That
is mortifying; but what signifies who has the undoing it? I
seldom suffer myself to think on this subject: _my_ patriotism
could do no good, and my philosophy can make me be at peace.”
The concluding lines of the above extract refer to the writer’s recent
retirement from the House of Commons. In the spring of the preceding
year, Walpole had announced that he should not again ask the suffrages
of the Lynn burgesses, stating as his reasons the declining state of
his health and his wish to withdraw from all public business; and
though his health had improved in the interval, the General Election
of 1768 found him fixed in his decision. Whatever may have been the
real motives of his conduct, there is no indication in his Letters that
he ever regretted the course he had taken. In June, 1769, he writes
from Strawberry Hill: “I am come hither for two months, very busy with
finishing my round tower, which has stood still these five years, and
with an enchanting new cottage that I have built, and other little
works. In August, I shall go to Paris for six weeks. In short, I am
delighted with having bid adieu to Parliament and politics, and with
doing nothing but what I like all the year round.” But the season was
again rainy. A few days later, we have a letter to Cole, who was then
settled at Waterbeach, near Cambridge:
“Strawberry Hill, Monday, June 26, 1769.
“Oh! yes, yes, I shall like Thursday or Friday, 6th or 7th,
exceedingly; I shall like your staying with me two days
exceedinglier; and longer exceedingliest: and I will carry you
back to Cambridge on our pilgrimage to Ely. But I should not at
all like to be catched in the glories of an installation,[44]
and find myself a doctor, before I knew where I was. It will be
much more agreeable to find the whole _caput_ asleep, digesting
turtle, dreaming of bishoprics, and humming old catches of
Anacreon, and scraps of Corelli. I wish Mr. Gray may not be
set out for the north; which is rather the case than setting
out for the summer. We have no summers, I think, but what
we raise, like pine-apples, by fire. My hay is an absolute
_water-souchy_, and teaches me how to feel for you. You are
quite in the right to sell your fief in Marshland. I should be
glad if you would take one step more, and quit Marshland. We
live, at least, on terra firma in this part of the world, and
can saunter out without stilts. _Item_, we do not wade into
pools, and call it going upon the water, and get sore throats.
I trust yours is better; but I recollect this is not the first
you have complained of. Pray be not incorrigible, but come to
shore.”
At the end of August he is in Paris with Madame du Deffand. “My dear
old woman,” he writes, “is in better health than when I left her, and
her spirits so increased, that I tell her she will go mad with age.
When they ask her how old she is, she answers, ‘J’ai soixante et mille
ans.’” In a letter written to George Montagu a week afterwards, we have
a description of this true Frenchwoman:
“Your two letters flew here together in a breath. I shall
answer the article of business first. I could certainly buy
many things for you here, that you would like, the reliques
of the last age’s magnificence; but since my Lady Holdernesse
invaded the Custom-House with an hundred and fourteen gowns,
in the reign of that two-penny monarch George Grenville, the
ports are so guarded, that not a soul but a smuggler can
smuggle anything into England; and I suppose you would not care
to pay seventy-five per cent. on second-hand commodities. All
I transported three years ago, was conveyed under the canon
of the Duke of Richmond. I have no interest in our present
representative; nor if I had, is he returning. Plate, of all
earthly vanities, is the most impassable: it is not counterband
in its metallic capacity, but totally so in its personal;
and the officers of the Custom-House not being philosophers
enough to separate the substance from the superficies, brutally
hammer both to pieces, and return you--only the intrinsic; a
compensation which you, who are no member of Parliament, would
not, I trow, be satisfied with. Thus I doubt you must retrench
your generosity to yourself, unless you can contract it into
an Elzevir size, and be content with anything one can bring in
one’s pocket.
“My dear old friend was charmed with your mention of her,
and made me vow to return you a thousand compliments. She
cannot conceive why you will not step hither. Feeling in
herself no difference between the spirits of twenty-three and
seventy-three, she thinks there is no impediment to doing
whatever one will, but the want of eyesight. If she had that,
I am persuaded no consideration would prevent her making me
a visit at Strawberry Hill. She makes songs, sings them, and
remembers all that ever were made; and, having lived from the
most agreeable to the most reasoning age, has all that was
amiable in the last, all that is sensible in this, without the
vanity of the former, or the pedant impertinence of the latter.
I have heard her dispute with all sorts of people, on all sorts
of subjects, and never knew her in the wrong. She humbles the
learned, sets right their disciples, and finds conversation
for everybody. Affectionate as Madame de Sévigné, she has none
of her prejudices, but a more universal taste; and, with the
most delicate frame, her spirits hurry her through a life of
fatigue that would kill me, if I was to continue here. If we
return by one in the morning from suppers in the country, she
proposes driving to the Boulevard or to the Foire St. Ovide,
because it is too early to go to bed. I had great difficulty
last night to persuade her, though she was not well, not to
sit up till between two and three for the comet; for which
purpose she had appointed an astronomer to bring his telescopes
to the president Henault’s, as she thought it would amuse
me. In short, her goodness to me is so excessive, that I
feel unashamed at producing my withered person in a round of
diversions, which I have quitted at home. I tell a story; I do
feel ashamed, and sigh to be in my quiet castle and cottage;
but it costs me many a pang, when I reflect that I shall
probably never have resolution enough to take another journey
to see this best and sincerest of friends, who loves me as much
as my mother did! but it is idle to look forward--what is next
year?--a bubble that may burst for her or me, before even the
flying year can hurry to the end of its almanack!…
“Adieu, my t’other dear old friend! I am sorry to say, I see
you almost as seldom as I do Madame du Deffand. However, it is
comfortable to reflect that we have not changed to each other
for some five-and-thirty years, and neither you nor I haggle
about naming so ancient a term. I made a visit yesterday to
the Abbess of Panthemont, General Oglethorpe’s niece, and no
chicken. I inquired after her mother, Madame de Mezieres, and
thought I might to a spiritual votary to immortality venture
to say, that her mother must be very old; she interrupted me
tartly, and said, no, her mother had been married extremely
young. Do but think of its seeming important to a saint to
sink a wrinkle of her own through an iron grate! Oh! we are
ridiculous animals; and if angels have any fun in them; how we
must divert them.”
Once more in England, he announces his return to the same friend:
“Strawberry Hill, Oct. 16, 1769.
“I arrived at my own Louvre last Wednesday night, and am now at
my Versailles. Your last letter reached me but two days before
I left Paris, for I have been an age at Calais and upon the
sea. I could execute no commission for you, and, in truth, you
gave me no explicit one; but I have brought you a bit of china,
and beg you will be content with a little present, instead of a
bargain. Said china is, or will be soon, in the Custom-House;
but I shall have it, I fear, long before you come to London.…
“I feel myself here like a swan, that, after living six weeks
in a nasty pool upon a common, is got back into its own Thames.
I do nothing but plume and clean myself, and enjoy the verdure
and silent waves. Neatness and greenth are so essential in my
opinion to the country, that in France, where I see nothing but
chalk and dirty peasants, I seem in a terrestrial purgatory
that is neither town nor country. The face of England is so
beautiful, that I do not believe Tempe or Arcadia were half
so rural; for both lying in hot climates, must have wanted
the turf of our lawns. It is unfortunate to have so pastoral
a taste, when I want a cane more than a crook. We are absurd
creatures; at twenty, I loved nothing but London.”
The winter of 1769-70 Walpole spent as usual in London. He now
moralizes on masquerades in the tone of an ancient:
“It is very lucky, seeing how much of the tiger enters into
the human composition, that there should be a good dose of
the monkey too. If Æsop had not lived so many centuries
before the introduction of masquerades and operas, he would
certainly have anticipated my observation, and worked it
up into a capital fable. As we still trade upon the stock
of the ancients, we seldom deal in any other manufacture;
and, though nature, after new combinations, lets forth new
characteristics, it is very rarely that they are added to the
old fund; else how could so striking a remark have escaped
being made, as mine, on the joint ingredients of tiger and
monkey? In France the latter predominates, in England the
former; but, like Orozmades and Arimanius, they get the better
by turns. The bankruptcy in France, and the rigours of the new
Comptroller-General, are half forgotten, in the expectation
of a new opera at the new theatre. Our civil war[45] has been
lulled to sleep by a Subscription Masquerade, for which the
House of Commons literally adjourned yesterday. Instead of
Fairfaxes and Cromwells, we have had a crowd of Henry the
Eighths, Wolseys, Vandykes, and Harlequins; and because Wilkes
was not mask enough, we had a man dressed like him, with a
visor, in imitation of his squint, and a Cap of Liberty on a
pole. In short, sixteen or eighteen young lords have given the
town a Masquerade; and politics, for the last fortnight, were
forced to give way to habit-makers. The ball was last night
at Soho; and, if possible, was more magnificent than the
King of Denmark’s. The Bishops opposed: he of London formally
remonstrated to the King, who did not approve it, but could
not help him. The consequence was, that four divine vessels
belonging to the holy fathers, alias their wives, were at this
Masquerade. Monkey again! A fair widow,[46] who once bore my
whole name, and now bears half of it, was there, with one of
those whom the newspapers call _great personages_--he dressed
like Edward the Fourth, she like Elizabeth Woodville, in
grey and pearls, with a black veil. Methinks it was not very
difficult to find out the meaning of those masks.
“As one of my ancient passions, formerly, was Masquerades, I
had a large trunk of dresses by me. I dressed out a thousand
young Conways[47] and Cholmondeleys,[48] and went with more
pleasure to see them pleased than when I formerly delighted in
that diversion myself. It has cost me a great headache, and I
shall probably never go to another. A symptom appeared of the
change that has happened in the people.
“The mob was beyond all belief: they held flambeaux to the
windows of every coach, and demanded to have the masks pulled
off and put on at their pleasure, but with extreme good-humour
and civility. I was with my Lady Hertford and two of her
daughters, in their coach: the mob took me for Lord Hertford,
and huzzaed and blessed me! One fellow cried out, ‘Are you for
Wilkes?’ another said, ‘You fool, what has Wilkes to do with a
Masquerade?’
“In good truth, that stock is fallen very low. The Court has
recovered a majority of seventy-five in the House of Commons;
and the party has succeeded so ill in the Lords, that my Lord
Chatham has betaken himself to the gout, and appears no more.
What Wilkes may do at his enlargement in April, I don’t know,
but his star is certainly much dimmed. The distress of France,
the injustice they have been induced to commit on public
credit, immense bankruptcies, and great bankers hanging and
drowning themselves, are comfortable objects in our prospect;
for one tiger is charmed if another tiger loses his tail.”
Again, he descants on the extravagance of the age:
“What do you think of a winter-Ranelagh[49] erecting in Oxford
Road, at the expense of sixty thousand pounds? The new Bank,
including the value of the ground, and of the houses demolished
to make room for it, will cost three hundred thousand; and
erected, as my Lady Townley[50] says, _by sober citizens too_!
I have touched before to you on the incredible profusion of our
young men of fashion. I know a younger brother who literally
gives a flower-woman half a guinea every morning for a bunch
of roses for the nosegay in his button-hole. There has lately
been an auction of stuffed birds; and, as natural history is
in fashion, there are physicians and others who paid forty
and fifty guineas for a single Chinese pheasant: you may buy
a live one for five. After this, it is not extraordinary that
pictures should be dear. We have at present three exhibitions.
One West,[51] who paints history in the taste of Poussin, gets
three hundred pounds for a piece not too large to hang over a
chimney. He has merit, but is hard and heavy, and far unworthy
of such prices. The rage to see these exhibitions is so great,
that sometimes one cannot pass through the streets where
they are. But it is incredible what sums are raised by mere
exhibitions of anything--a new fashion; and to enter at which
you pay a shilling or half-a-crown. Another rage is for prints
of English portraits: I have been collecting them above thirty
years, and originally never gave for a mezzotinto above one or
two shillings. The lowest are now a crown; most, from half a
guinea to a guinea. Lately, I assisted a clergyman [Granger] in
compiling a catalogue of them; since the publication, scarce
heads in books, not worth threepence, will sell for five
guineas. Then we have Etruscan vases, made of earthenware, in
Staffordshire [by Wedgwood] from two to five guineas; and _or
moulu_, never made here before, which succeeds so well, that a
teakettle, which the inventor offered for one hundred guineas,
sold by auction for one hundred and thirty. In short, we are at
the height of extravagance and improvements, for we do improve
rapidly in taste as well as in the former. I cannot say so much
for our genius. Poetry is gone to bed, or into our prose; we
are like the Romans in that too. If we have the arts of the
Antonines,--we have the fustian also.”
Our ancestors seem to have been much impressed with the splendour of
the London Pantheon. Walpole recurs to the subject: “If we laugh at
the French, they stare at us. Our enormous luxury and expense astonish
them. I carried their Ambassador and a Comte de Levi the other morning
to see the new winter-Ranelagh [the Pantheon] in Oxford Road, which is
almost finished. It amazed me myself. Imagine Balbec in all its glory!
The pillars are of artificial _giallo antico_. The ceilings, even of
the passages, are of the most beautiful stuccos in the best taste of
grotesque. The ceilings of the ball-rooms, and the panels, painted like
Raphael’s _loggias_ in the Vatican. A dome like the Pantheon, glazed.
Monsieur de Guisnes said to me, ‘Ce n’est qu’à Londres qu’on peut faire
tout cela.’” What a sermon would our moralist have preached, could he
have foreseen that, in the reign of George III’s grand-daughter, this
English Balbec would become a repository for cheap wines!
In July, 1770, Walpole received a command to attend the Princess Amelia
on a visit to Stowe. He describes what occurred to George Montagu:
“The party passed off much better than I expected. A Princess
at the head of a very small set for five days together did not
promise well. However, she was very good-humoured and easy,
and dispensed with a large quantity of etiquette. Lady Temple
is good-nature itself, my Lord was very civil, Lord Besborough
is made to suit all sorts of people, Lady Mary Coke respects
royalty too much not to be very condescending, Lady Anne
Howard[52] and Mrs. Middleton filled up the drawing-room, or
rather made it out, and I was so determined to carry it off as
well as I could, and happened to be in such good spirits, and
took such care to avoid politics, that we laughed a great deal,
and had not a cloud the whole time.
“We breakfasted at half an hour after nine; but the Princess
did not appear till it was finished; then we walked in the
garden, or drove about it in cabriolets, till it was time to
dress; dined at three, which, though properly proportioned to
the smallness of company to avoid ostentation, lasted a vast
while, as the Princess eats and talks a great deal; then again
into the garden till past seven, when we came in, drank tea
and coffee, and played at pharaoh till ten, when the Princess
retired, and we went to supper, and before twelve to bed. You
see there was great sameness and little vivacity in all this.
It was a little broken by fishing, and going round the park one
of the mornings; but, in reality, the number of buildings and
variety of scenes in the garden, made each day different from
the rest, and my meditations on so historic a spot prevented
my being tired. Every acre brings to one’s mind some instance
of the parts or pedantry, of the taste or want of taste, of
the ambition or love of fame, or greatness or miscarriages,
of those that have inhabited, decorated, planned, or visited
the place. Pope, Congreve, Vanbrugh, Kent, Gibbs, Lord Cobham,
Lord Chesterfield, the mob of nephews, the Lytteltons,
Grenvilles, Wests, Leonidas Glover, and Wilkes, the late Prince
of Wales, the King of Denmark, Princess Amelia, and the proud
monuments of Lord Chatham’s services, now enshrined there, then
anathematised there, and now again commanding there, with the
Temple of Friendship,[53] like the Temple of Janus, sometimes
open to war, and sometimes shut up in factious cabals--all
these images crowd upon one’s memory, and add visionary
personages to the charming scenes, that are so enriched with
fanes and temples, that the real prospects are little less than
visions themselves.
“On Wednesday night, a small Vauxhall was acted for us at
the grotto in the Elysian fields, which was illuminated with
lamps, as were the thicket and two little barks on the lake.
With a little exaggeration, I could make you believe that
nothing ever was so delightful. The idea was really pretty;
but, as my feelings have lost something of their romantic
sensibility, I did not quite enjoy such an entertainment _al
fresco_ so much as I should have done twenty years ago. The
evening was more than cool, and the destined spot anything but
dry. There were not half lamps enough, and no music but an
ancient militia-man, who played cruelly on a squeaking tabor
and pipe. As our procession descended the vast flight of steps
into the garden, in which was assembled a crowd of people from
Buckingham and the neighbouring villages to see the Princess
and the show, the moon shining very bright, I could not help
laughing as I surveyed our troop, which, instead of tripping
lightly to such an Arcadian entertainment, were hobbling down
by the balustrades, wrapped up in cloaks and great-coats, for
fear of catching cold. The Earl, you know, is bent double, the
Countess very lame; I am a miserable walker, and the Princess,
though as strong as a Brunswick lion, makes no figure in going
down fifty stone stairs. Except Lady Anne, and by courtesy Lady
Mary, we were none of us young enough for a pastoral. We supped
in the grotto, which is as proper to this climate as a sea-coal
fire would be in the dog-days at Tivoli.
“But the chief entertainment of the week, at least what was so
to the Princess, is an arch, which Lord Temple has erected to
her honour in the most enchanting of all picturesque scenes.
It is inscribed on one side, ‘AMELIÆ SOPHIÆ, AUG.,’ and has
a medallion of her on the other. It is placed on an eminence
at the top of the Elysian fields, in a grove of orange-trees.
You come to it on a sudden, and are startled with delight on
looking through it: you at once see, through a glade, the river
winding at the bottom; from which a thicket rises, arched over
with trees, but opened, and discovering a hillock full of
hay-cocks, beyond which in front is the Palladian bridge, and
again over that a larger hill crowned with the castle. It is a
tall landscape framed by the arch and the overbowering trees,
and comprehending more beauties of light, shade, and buildings,
than any picture of Albano I ever saw.
“Between the flattery and the prospect, the Princess was really
in Elysium: she visited her arch four and five times every day,
and could not satiate herself with it. The statues of Apollo
and the Muses stand on each side of the arch. One day she found
in Apollo’s hand the following lines, which I had written for
her, and communicated to Lord Temple.”
We spare our readers the verses. The letter from which we have
been quoting is one of the last of Walpole’s letters to Montagu.
A coolness arose the same year between the two friends, either
without a cause, or for some cause which has not been explained, and
continued until Montagu’s death in 1780.[54] That Walpole regretted
the breach his tone in referring to it shows, and his readers have
reason to regret it likewise, for his letters to Montagu display more
warmth of feeling and simplicity of style than any others in his
published correspondence. A few months before Montagu drops out of
sight, Lady Ossory appears in the list of the ladies to whom Walpole
addressed sprightly letters in a strain of oddly mingled ceremony and
familiarity. He had been on terms of friendship with her before her
divorce from the Duke of Grafton; in his letters of that period he
frequently refers to her as his Duchess, and speaks of following her
and loo all over the kingdom. There can be no doubt that he often wrote
to her at that time, but the first of his published letters to her is
dated after her marriage with Lord Ossory. Here are two letters to
her, one describing the damage done to his castle by an explosion of
powder-mills at Hounslow, the other the sea of troubles into which he
was plunged when his nephew, Lord Orford, was seized with insanity. The
first letter was begun in London on the 5th January, 1772:
“I was waked very early this morning, by half an hour after
nine; (I mean this for flattery, for Mr. Crauford says your
ladyship does not rise till one); by the way, I was in the
middle of a charming dream. I thought I was in the King’s
Library in Paris, and in a gallery full of books of prints,
containing nothing but _fêtes_ decorations of scenery. I took
down a long Roll, on which was painted, on vellum, all the
ceremonies of the present reign: there was the young King
walking to his coronation; the Regent before, who I thought
was alive. I said to him, your Royal Highness has a great air;
he seemed extremely flattered, when the house shook as if the
devil were come for him. I had scarce recovered my vexation at
being so disturbed, when the door of my room shook so violently
that I thought somebody was breaking it open, though I knew it
was not locked. It was broad daylight, but I did not know that
housebreaking might not be still improving. I cried out ‘Who is
there?’ Nobody answered. In less than another minute, the door
rattled and shook still more robberaceously. I call again--no
reply. I rung: the housemaid ran in as pale as white ashes, if
you ever saw such, and cried, ‘Goodness! Sir, I am frightened
out of my wits: there has been an earthquake!’ Oh! I believed
her immediately. Philip [his valet] came in, and, being a Swiss
philosopher, insisted it was only the wind. I sent him down to
collect opinions in the street. He returned, and owned every
body in this and the neighbouring streets were persuaded their
houses had been breaking open; or had ran out of them, thinking
there was an earthquake. Alas! it was much worse; for you know,
Madam, our earthquakes are as harmless as a new-born child.
At one, came in a courier from Margaret [his housekeeper] to
tell me that five powder-mills had been blown up at Hounslow,
at half an hour after nine this morning, had almost shook Mrs.
Clive, and had broken parts or all of eight of my painted
windows, besides other damage. This is a cruel misfortune: I
don’t know how I shall repair it! I shall go down to-morrow,
and on Thursday will finish my report.
“Wednesday, 8th.
“Well! Madam, I am returned from my poor shattered castle, and
never did it look so Gothic in its born days. You would swear
it had been besieged by the Presbyterians in the Civil Wars,
and that, finding it impregnable, they had vented their holy
malice on the painted glass. As this gunpowder-army passed
on, it demolished Mr. Hindley’s fine bow-window of ancient
Scripture histories; and only because your ladyship is my ally,
broke the large window over your door, and wrenched off a lock
in your kitchen. Margaret sits by the waters of Babylon, and
weeps over Jerusalem. I shall pity those she shows the house
to next summer, for her story is as long and deplorable as a
chapter of casualties in ‘Baker’s Chronicle;’ yet she was not
taken quite unprepared, for one of the Bantam hens crowed on
Sunday morning, and the chandler’s wife told her three weeks
ago, when the barn was blown down, that ill-luck never comes
single. She is, however, very thankful that the China Room has
escaped, and says, Heaven has always been the best creature
in the world to her. I dare not tell her how many churches I
propose to rob, to repair my losses.”
The second is dated:
“Strawberry Hill, past midnight, June 11, 1773.
“Unless I borrow from my sleep, I can certainly have no time
to please myself. I am this minute arrived here, Madam, and
being the flower of chivalry, I sacrifice, like a true knight,
the moments I steal from my rest to gallantry. Save me, or
I shall become a solicitor in Chancery, unless business and
fatigue overset my head, and reduce me to my poor nephew’s
state. Indeed, I am half hurried out of my senses. Think of me
putting queries to lawyers, up to the ears in mortgages, wills,
settlements, and contingent remainders. My lawyer is sent away
that I may give audience to the Honourable Mr. Manners, the
genuine, if not the legitimate son of Lord William. He came
civilly yesterday morning to ask me if he might not seize the
pictures at Houghton, which he heard were worth threescore
thousand pounds, for nine thousand he has lent Lord Orford. The
vulture’s throat gaped for them all--what a scene is opened!
Houghton will be a rookery of harpies--I doubt there are worse
scenes to follow, and black transactions! What occupation
chalked out for an end of a life that I had calculated for
tranquillity, and which gout and law are to divide between them!
“In the midst of this prospect must I keep up the tone of the
world, go shepherdising with Macaronies, sit up at loo with
my Lady Hertford, be witness to Miss Pelham’s orgies, dine
at villas, and give dinners at my own. ’Tis well my spirits
and resolution have survived my youth: you have heard how my
mornings pass--now for the rest. Consultations of physicians,
letters to Lady Orford, sent for to my brother, decent visits
to _my_ Court,[55] sup at Lady Powis’s on Wednesday, drink
tea with all the fashionable world at Mr. Fitzroy’s farm on
Thursday, blown by a north wind there into the house, and
whisk back to Lady Hertford’s; this morning to my brother’s to
hear of new bills, away to dine at ----, Muswell Hill, with
the Beauclerks, and florists and natural historians, Banks
and Solanders; return to town, step to ask a friend whether
reversions of jointures can be left away, into my chaise and
hither. To-morrow come two Frenchmen to dinner--on Monday, a
man to sell me two acres immensely dear as a favour,--Philip
[his valet], I cannot help it, you must go and put him off;
I have not a minute, I must go back to-morrow night to meet
the lawyers at my brother’s on Sunday morning. Margaret [his
housekeeper] comes in. ‘Sir, Lady Bingham desires you will
dine with her at Hampton Court on Tuesday;’ I cannot. ‘Sir,
Captain What-d’ye-call’m has sent twice for a ticket to see the
house’--Don’t plague me about tickets. ‘Sir, a servant from
Isleworth brought this parcel.’ What on earth is in it?--only
printed proposals for writing the lives of all British writers,
and a letter to tell me I could do it better than anybody, but
as I may not have time, Dr. Berkenhout proposes to do it, and
will write mine into the bargain, if I will but be so good as
to write it first and send it him, and give him advice for the
conduct of his work, and point out materials, and furnish him
with anecdotes.
“My dear madam, what if you should send him this letter as a
specimen of my life! Alas, alas! I have already lost my lilac
tide. I have heard but one nightingale this year, and my farmer
cut my hay last Tuesday morning without telling me, just as I
was going to London. Is it to be borne? O for the _sang-froid_
of an Almackian, who pursues his delights,
“‘Though in the jaws of ruin and codille!’”