The deaths of kings travel so much faster than any post, that I
cannot expect to tell you news, when I say your old master is
dead. But I can pretty well tell you what I like best to be
able to say to you on this occasion, that you are in no danger.
Change Will scarce reach to Florence when its hand is checked
even in the capital. But I will move a little regularly, and
then you will form your judgment more easily--This is Tuesday;
on Friday night the King went to bed in perfect health, and
rose so the next morning at his usual hour of six; he called
for and drank his chocolate. At seven, for every thing with
him was exact and periodic, he went into the closet to dismiss
his chocolate. Coming from thence, his valet de chambre heard
a noise; waited a moment, and heard something like a groan. He
ran in, and in a small room between the closet and bedchamber
he found the King on the floor, who had cut the right side of
his face against the edge of a bureau, and who after a gasp
expired. Lady Yarmouth was called, and sent for Princess
Amelia; but they only told the latter that the King was ill and
wanted her. She had been confined for some days with a
rheumatism, but hurried down, ran into the room without farther
notice, and saw her father extended on the bed. She is very
purblind, and more than a little deaf They had not closed his
eyes: she bent down close to his face, and concluded he spoke
to her, though she could not hear him-guess what a shock when
she found the truth. She wrote to the Prince of Wales--but so
had one of the valets de chambre first. He came to town and
saw the Duke(113) and the privy council. He was extremely kind
to the first--and in general has behaved with the greatest
propriety, dignity, and decency. He read his speech to the
council with much grace, and dismissed the guards on himself to
wait on his grandfather's body. It is intimated, that he means
to employ the same ministers, but with reserve to himself of
more authority than has lately been in fashion. The Duke of
York and Lord Bute are named of the cabinet council. The late
King's will is not yet opened. To-day every body kissed hands
at Leicester-house, and this week, I believe, the King will go
to St. James's. The body has been opened; the great ventricle
of the heart had burst. What an enviable death! In the
greatest period of glory of this country, and of his reign, in
perfect tranquillity at home, at seventy-seven, growing blind
and deaf, to die without a pang, before any reverse of fortune,
or any distasted peace, nay, but two days before a ship load of
bad news: could he have chosen such another moment? The news is
bad indeed! Berlin taken by capitulation, and yet the Austrians
behaved so savagely that even the Russians(114) felt delicacy,
were shocked, and checked them! Nearer home, the hereditary
Prince(115) has been much beaten by Monsieur de Castries, and
forced to raise the siege of Wesel, whither Prince Ferdinand
had Sent him most unadvisedly: we have scarce an officer
unwounded. The secret expedition will now, I conclude, sail,
to give an `eclat to the new reign. Lord Albemarle does not
command it, as I told you, nor Mr. Conway, though both applied.
Nothing is settled about the Parliament; not even the necessary
changes in the household. Committees of council are regulating
the mourning and the funeral. The town, which between armies,
militia, and approaching elections, was likely to be a desert
all the winter, is filled in a minute, but every thing is in
the deepest tranquility. People stare; the only expression.
The moment any thing is declared, one shall not perceive the
novelty of the reign. A nation without parties is soon a
nation without curiosity. You may now judge how little your
situation is likely to be affected. I finish; I think I feel
ashamed of tapping the events of a new reign, of which probably
I shall not see half. If I was not unwilling to balk your
curiosity, I should break my pen, as the great officers do
their white wands, over the grave of the old King. Adieu!
(113) William Duke of Cumberland.
(114) The Russians and Austrians obtained possession of Berlin,
while Frederick was employed in watching the great Austrian
army. They were, however, soon driven from it.-D.
(115) Of Brunswick; afterwards the celebrated duke of that
name.-D.
Letter 53 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Oct. 31, 1760. (page 99)
When you have changed the cipher of George the Second into that
of George the Third. and have read the addresses, and have
shifted a few lords and grooms of the bedchamber, you are master
of the history of the new reign, which is indeed but a new lease
of the old one. The favourite took it up in a
high style; but having, like my Lord Granville, forgot to ensure
either house of Parliament, or the mob, the third house of
Parliament, he drove all the rest to unite. They have united,
and have notified their resolution of governing as
before: not but the Duke of Newcastle cried for his old
master, desponded for himself, protested he would retire,
consulted every body whose interest it was to advise him to stay,
and has accepted to-day, thrusting the dregs of his ridiculous
life into a young court, which will at least be saved from the
imputation of childishness, by being governed by folly of seventy
years growth.
The young King has all the appearance of being amiable. There is
great grace to temper much dignity and extreme good-nature, which
breaks out on all occasions. Even the household is not settled
yet. The greatest difficulty is the master of the horse. Lord
Huntingdon is so by all precedent; Lord Gower, I believe, will be
so. Poor Lord Rochford is undone - nobody is unreasonable to
save him. The Duke of Cumberland has taken Schomberg-house in
Pall-mall; Princess Emily is dealing for Sir Richard Lyttelton's
in Cavendish-square. People imagined the Duke of Devonshire had
lent her Burlington-house; I don't know why, unless they supposed
she was to succeed my Lady Burlington in every thing.
A week has finished my curiosity fully; I return to Strawberry
to-morrow, and I fear go next week to Houghton, to make an
appearance of civility to Lynn, whose favour I never asked, nor
care if I have or not; but I don't know how to refuse this
attention to Lord Orford, who begs it.
I trust you will have approved my behaviour at court, that is, my
mixing extreme politeness with extreme indifference. Our
predecessors, the philosophers of ancient days, knew not how to
be disinterested without brutality; I pique myself on founding a
new sect. My followers are to tell kings, with excess of
attention, that they don't want them, and to despise favour with
more good breeding than others practise in suing for it. We are
a thousand times a greater nation than the Grecians: why are we
to imitate them! Our sense is as great, our follies greater; sure
we have all the pretensions to superiority! Adieu!
P. S. As to the fair widow Brown, I assure you the devil never
sowed two hundred thousand pounds in a more fruitful soil: every
guinea has taken root already. I saw her yesterday; it shall be
some time before I see her again.
Letter 54 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 4, 1760. (page 100)
I am not gone to Houghton, you see: my Lord Orford is come to
town, and I have persuaded him to stay and perform decencies.
King George the Second is dead richer than Sir Robert Brown,
though perhaps not so rich as my Lord Hardwicke. He has left
fifty thousand pounds between the Duke, Emily, and Mary; the Duke
has given up his share. To Lady Yarmouth a cabinet, with the
contents; they call it eleven thousand pounds. By a German deed,
he gives the Duke to the value of one hundred and eighty thousand
pounds, placed on mortgages, not immediately recoverable. e had
once given him twice as much more, then revoked it, and at last
excused the revocation, on the pretence of the expenses of the
war; but owns he was the best son that ever lived, and had never
offended him; a pretty strong comment on the affair of
Closterseven! He gives him, besides, all his jewels in England;
but had removed all the best to Hanover, which he makes crown
jewels, and his successor residuary legatee. The Duke, too, has
some uncounted cabinets. My Lady Suffolk has given me a
particular of his jewels, which plainly amount to one hundred and
fifty thousand pounds. It happened oddly to my Lady Suffolk.
Two days before he died, she went to make a visit at Kensington,
not knowing of the review; she found herself hemmed in by
coaches, and was close to him, whom she had not seen for so many
years, and to my Lady Yarmouth; but they did not know her: it
struck her, and has made her very sensible to his death.
The changes hang back. Nothing material has been altered yet.
Ned Finch, the only thing my Lady Yarmouth told the new King she
had to ask for, is made surveyor of the roads, in the room of Sir
Harry Erskine, who is to have an old regiment. He excuses
himself from seeing company, as favourite of the favourite.
Arthur is removed from being clerk of the wine-cellar, a
sacrifice to morality The Archbishop has such hopes of the young
King, that he is never out of the circle. He trod upon the
Duke's foot on Sunday, in the haste of his zeal; the Duke said to
him, "My lord, if your grace is in such a hurry to make your
court, that is the way." Bon-mots come thicker than changes.
Charles Townshend, receiving an account of the impression the
King's death had made, was told Miss Chudleigh cried. "What,"
said he, "Oysters?" And last night, Mr. Dauncey, asking George
Selwyn if Princess Amelia would have a guard? he replied, "Now
and then one, I suppose."
An extraordinary event has happened to-day; George Townshend sent
a challenge to Lord Albemarle, desiring him to be with a second
in the fields. Lord Albemarle took Colonel Crawford, and went to
Mary-le-bone; George Townshend bespoke Lord Buckingham, who loves
a secret too well not to tell it: he communicated it to Stanley,
who went to St. James's, and acquainted Mr. Caswall, the captain
on guard. The latter took a hackney-coach, drove to
Mary-le-bone, and saw one pair. After waiting ten minutes, the
others came; Townshend made an apology to Lord Albemarle for
making him wait. "Oh," said he, "men of spirit don't want
apologies: come, let us begin what we came for." At that
instant, out steps Caswall from his coach, and begs their pardon,
as his superior officers, but told them they were his prisoners.
He desired Mr. Townshend and Lord Buckingham to return to their
coach; he would carry back Lord Albemarle and Crawford in his.
He did, and went to acquaint the King, who has commissioned some
of the matrons of the army to examine the affair, and make it up.
All this while, I don't know what the quarrel was, but they hated
one another so much on the Duke's account, that a slight word
would easily make their aversions boil over. Don't you, nor even
your general come to town on this occasion? Good night.
Letter 55 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 13, 1760. (page 102)
Even the honeymoon of a new reign don't produce events every day.
There is nothing but the common Paying of addresses and kissing
hands. The chief difficulty is settled; Lord Gower yields the
mastership of the horse to Lord Huntingdon, and removes to the
great wardrobe, from whence Sir Thomas Robinson was to have gone
into Ellis's place, but he is saved. The city, however, have a
mind to be out of humour; a paper has been fixed on the Royal
Exchange, with these words, "No petticoat government, no Scotch
minister, no Lord George Sackville;" two hints totally unfounded,
and the other scarce true. No petticoat ever governed less, it
is left at Leicester-house; Lord George's breeches are as little
concerned; and, except Lady Susan Stuart and Sir Harry Erskine,
nothing has yet been done for any Scots. For the King himself,
he seems all good-nature, and wishing to satisfy every body; all
his speeches are obliging. I saw him again yesterday, and was
surprised to find the levee-room had lost so entirely the air of
the lion's den. This sovereign don't stand in one spot, with his
eyes fixed royally on the ground, and dropping bits of German
news; he walks about, and speaks to every body- I saw him
afterwards on the throne, where he is graceful and genteel, sits
with dignity, and reads his answers to addresses well; it was the
Cambridge address, carried by the Duke of Newcastle in his
doctor's gown, and looking like the M`edecin malgr`e lui. He had
been vehemently solicitous for attendance, for fear my Lord
Westmoreland, who vouchsafes himself to bring the address from
Oxford, should outnumber him. Lord Litchfield and several other
Jacobites have kissed hands; George Selwyn says, "They go to St.
James's, because now there are so many Stuarts there."
Do you know, I had the curiosity to go to the burying t'other
night; I had never seen a royal funeral; nay, I walked as a rag
of quality, which I found would be, and so it was, the easiest
way of seeing it. It is absolutely a noble sight. The Prince's
chamber, hung with purple, and a quantity of silver lamps, the
coffin under a canopy of purple velvet, and six vast chandeliers
of silver on high stands, had a very good effect. The ambassador
from Tripoli and his son were carried to see that chamber. The
procession through a line of foot-guards, every seventh man
bearing a torch, the horse-guards lining the outside, their
officers with drawn sabres and crape sashes on horseback, the
drums muffled, the fifes, bells tolling, and minute guns,--all
this was very solemn. But the charm was the entrance of the
abbey, where we were received by the dean and chapter in rich
robes, the choir and almsmen bearing torches; the whole abbey so
illuminated, that one saw it to greater advantage than by day;
the tombs, long aisles, and fretted roof, all appearing
distinctly, and with the happiest chiaro scuro. There wanted
nothing but incense, and little chapels here and there, with
priests saying mass for the repose of the defunct; yet one could
not complain of its not being Catholic enough. I had been in
dread of' being coupled with some boy of ten years old; but the
heralds were not very accurate, and I walked with George
Grenville, taller and older, to keep me in countenance. When we
came to the chapel of Henry the Seventh, all solemnity and
decorum ceased; no order was observed, people sat or stood where
they could or would; the yeomen of the guard were crying out for
help, oppressed by the immense weight of the coffin; the bishop
read sadly, and blundered in the prayers; the fine chapter, Man
that is born of a woman, was chanted, not read; and the anthem,
besides being immeasurably tedious, would have served as well for
a nuptial. The real serious part was the figure of the Duke of
Cumberland, heightened by a thousand melancholy circumstances.
He had a dark brown adonis, and a cloak of black cloth, with a
train of five yards. Attending the funeral of a father could not
be pleasant: his leg extremely bad, yet forced to stand upon it
near two hours; his face bloated and distorted with his late
paralytic stroke, which has affected, too, one of his eyes, and
placed over the mouth of the vault, into which, in all
probability, he must himself so soon descend; think how
unpleasant a situation! he bore it all with a firm and
unaffected countenance. This grave scene was fully contrasted by
the burlesque Duke of Newcastle. He fell into a fit of crying
the moment he came into the chapel, and flung himself back in a
stall, the archbishop hovering over him with a smelling-bottle;
but in two minutes his curiosity got the better of his hypocrisy,
and he ran about the chapel with his glass to spy who was or was
not there, spying with one hand, and mopping his eyes with the
other. Then returned the fear of catching cold; and the Duke of
Cumberland, who was sinking with heat, felt himself weighed down,
and turning round, found it was the Duke of Newcastle standing
upon his train, to avoid the chill of the marble. It was very
theatric to look down into the vault, where the coffin lay,
attended by mourners with lights. Clavering, the groom of the
bedchamber, refused to sit up with the body, and was dismissed by
the King's order.
I have nothing more to tell you, but a trifle, a very trifle.
The King of Prussia has totally defeated Marshal Daun.(116)
This, which would have been prodigious news a month ago, is
nothing to-day; it only takes its turn among the questions, "Who
is to be groom of the bedchamber? what is Sir T. Robinson to
have?" I have been to Leicester-fields to-day; the crowd was
immoderate; I don't believe it will continue so. good night.
Yours ever.
(116) At Torgau, on the 3d of November. An animated description
of this desperate battle is given by Walpole in his Memoires,
vol. ii. p. 449.-E.
Letter 56 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Thursday, 1760. (page 104)
As a codicil to my letter, I send you the bedchamber. There are
to be eighteen lords, and thirteen grooms; all the late King's
remain, but your cousin Manchester, Lord Falconberg, Lord Essex,
and Lord Flyndford, replaced by the Duke of Richmond, Lord
Weymouth, Lord March, and Lord Eglinton: the last at the request
of the Duke of York. Instead of Clavering, Nassau, and General
Campbell, who is promised something else, Lord Northampton's
brother and Commodore Keppel are grooms. When it was offered to
the Duke of Richmond, he said he could not accept it, unless
something was done for Colonel Keppel, for whom he has interested
himself; that it would look like sacrificing Keppel to his own
views. This is handsome; Keppel is to be equery.
Princess Amelia goes every where, as she calls it; she was on
Monday at Lady Holderness's, and next Monday is to be at
Bedford-house; but there is only the late King's set, and the
court of Bedford so she makes the houses of other people as
triste as St. James's was. Good night.
Not a word more of the King of Prussia: did you ever know a
victory mind the wind so?
Letter 57 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Monday, Nov. 24, 1760. (page 104)
Unless I were to send you journals, lists, catalogues,
computations of the bodies, tides, swarms of people that go to
court to present addresses, or to be presented, I can tell you
nothing new. The day the King went to the House, I was three
quarters of an hour getting through Whitehall; there were
subjects enough to set up half-a-dozen petty kings: the Pretender
would be proud to reign over the footmen only; and, indeed,
unless he acquires some of them, he will have no subjects left;
all their masters flock to St. James's. The palace is so
thronged, that I will stay tilt some people are discontented.
The first night the King went to the play, which was civilly on a
Friday, not on the opera-night, as he used to do, the whole
audience sung God save the King in chorus. For the first act,
the press was so great at the door, that no ladies could go to
the boxes, and only the servants appeared there, who kept places:
at the end of the second act, the whole mob broke in, and seated
themselves; yet all this zeal is not likely to last, though he so
well deserves it. Seditious papers are again stuck up: one
t'other day in Westminster Hall declared against a Saxe-Gothan
Princess. The Archbishop, who is never out of the drawing-room,
has great hopes from the King's goodness, that he shall make
something of him, that is something bad of him. On the Address,
Pitt and his zany Beckford quarrelled, on the latter's calling
the campaign languid. What is become of our magnanimous ally and
his victory, I know not. It) eleven days, no courier has arrived
from him; but I have been these two days perfectly indifferent
about his magnanimity. I am come to put my Anecdotes of Painting
into the press. You are one of the few that I expect will be
entertained with it. It has warmed Gray's coldness so much, that
he is violent about it; in truth, there is an infinite quantity
of new and curious things about it; but as it is quite foreign
from all popular topics, I don't suppose it will be much attended
to. There is not a word of Methodism in it, it says nothing of
the disturbances in Ireland, it does not propose to keep all
Canada, it neither flattered the King of Prussia nor Prince
Ferdinand, it does not say that the city of London are the wisest
men in the world, it is silent about George Townshend, and does
not abuse my Lord George Sackville; how should it please? I want
you to help me in a little affair, that regards it. I have found
in a MS. that in the church of Beckley, or Becksley, in Sussex,
there are portraits on glass, In a window, of Henry the Third and
his Queen. I have looked in the map, and find the first name
between Bodiham and Rye, but I am not sure it is the place. I
will be much obliged to you if you will write directly to your
Sir Whistler, and beg him to inform himself very exactly if there
is any such thing in such a church near Bodiham. Pray state it
minutely; because if there is, I will have them drawn for the
frontispiece to my work.
Did I tell you that the Archbishop tried to hinder the "Minor"
from being played at Drury Lane? for once the Duke of Devonshire
was firm, and would only let him correct some passages, and even
of those the Duke has restored some. One that the prelate
effaced was, "You snub-nosed son of a bitch." Foote says, he
will take out a license to preach Tam. Cant, against Tom.
Cant.(117)
The first volume of Voltaire's Peter the Great is arrived. I
weep over it. It is as languid as the campaign; he is grown old.
He boasts of the materials communicated to him by the Czarina's
order--but alas! he need not be proud of them. They only serve
to show how much worse he writes history with materials than
without. Besides, it is evident how much that authority has
cramped his genius. I had heard before, that when he sent the
work to Petersburgh for imperial approbation, it was returned
with orders to increase the panegyric. I wish he had acted like
a very inferior author. Knyphausen once hinted to me, that I
might have some authentic papers, if I was disposed to write the
life of his master; but I did not care for what would lay me
under such restrictions. It is not fair to use weapons against
the persons that lend them; and I do not admire his master enough
to commend any thing in him, but his military actions. Adieu!
(117) The following anecdote is related in the Biographia
Dramatica:--"Our English Aristophanes sent a copy of the Minor to
the Archbishop of Canterbury, requesting that, if his grace
should see any thing objectionable in it, he would exercise the
free use of his pen, either in the way of erasure or correction.
The Archbishop returned it untouched; observing to a confidential
friend, that he was sure the wit had only laid a trap for him,
and that if he had put his pen to the manuscript, by way of
correction or objection, Foote would have had the assurance to
have advertised the play as 'corrected and prepared for the press
by his grace the Archbishop of Canterbury.'"-E.
Letter 58 To The Rev. Henry Zouch.
Arlington Street, Nov. 27, 1760. (page 106)
You are extremely kind, Sir, in remembering my little commission
I troubled you with. As I am in great want of some more painted
glass to finish a window in my round tower, I should be glad,
though it may not be a Pope, to have the piece you mentioned, if
it can be purchased reasonably.
My Lucan is finished, but will not be published till after
Christmas, when I hope you will do me the favour of accepting
one, and let me know how I shall Convey it. The Anecdotes of
Painting have succeeded to the press: I have finished two
volumes, but as there will at least be a third, I am not
determined whether I shall not wait to publish the whole
together. You will be surprised, I think, to see what a quantity
of materials the industry of one man (Vertue) could amass and how
much he retrieved at this late period. I hear of nothing new
likely to appear; all the world is taken up in penning addresses,
or in presenting them;(118) and the approaching elections will
occupy the thoughts of men so much that an author could not
appear at a worse era.
(118) On the then recent accession of George III.-E.
letter 59 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 11, 1760. (page 106)
I thank you for the inquiries about the painted glass, and shall
be glad if I prove to be in the right.
There is not much of news to tell you; and yet there is much
dissatisfaction. The Duke of Newcastle has threatened to resign
on the appointment of Lord Oxford and Lord Bruce without his
knowledge. His court rave about Tories, which you know comes
with a singular grace from them, as the Duke never preferred any.
Murray, Lord Gower, Sir John Cotton, Jack Pitt, etc. etc. etc.
were all firm whigs. But it is unpardonable to put an end to all
faction, when it is not for factious purposes. Lord
Fitzmaurice,(119) made aide-de-camp to the King, has disgusted
the army. The Duke of Richmond, whose brother has no more been
put over others than the Duke of Newcastle has preferred Tories,
has presented a warm memorial in a warm manner, and has resigned
the bedchamber, not his regiment-another propriety.
Propriety is so much in fashion, that Miss Chudleigh has called
for the council books of the subscription concert, and has struck
off the name of Mrs. Naylor.(120) I have some thoughts of
remonstrating, that General Waldegrave is too lean for to be a
groom of the bedchamber. Mr. Chute has sold his house to Miss
Speed for three thousand pounds, and has taken one for a year in
Berkeley Square.
This is a very brief letter; I fear this reign will soon furnish
longer. When the last King could be beloved, a young man with a
good heart has little chance of being so. Moreover, I have a
maxim, that the extinction of party is the origin of faction."
Good night.
(119) Afterwards Earl of Shelburne, and in 1784 created Marquis
of Lansdowne.-E.
(120) A noted procuress.-E.
Letter 60 To The Rev. Henry Zouch
Arlington Street, Jan. 3, 1761. (page 107)
Sir,
I stayed till I had the Lucan ready to send you, before I thanked
you for your letter, and for the pane of glass, about which you
have given yourself so much kind trouble, and which I have
received; I think it is clearly Heraclitus weeping over a globe.
Illuminated MSS., unless they have portraits of particular
persons, I do not deal in; the extent of my collecting is already
full asgreat as I can afford. I am not the less obliged to you,
Sir, for thinking Of me. Were my fortune larger, I should go
deeper into printing, and having engraved curious MSS. and
drawings; as I cannot, I comfort myself with reflecting on the
mortifications I avoid, by the little regard shown by the world
to those sort of things. The sums laid out on books one should,
at first sight, think an indication of encouragement to letters;
but booksellers only are encouraged, not books. Bodies of
sciences, that is, compilations and mangled abstracts, are the
only saleable commodities. Would you believe, what I know is
fact, that Dr. Hill(121) earned fifteen guineas a-week by working
for wholesale dealers: he was at once employed on six voluminous
works of Botany, Husbandry, etc. published weekly. I am sorry to
say, this journeyman is one of the first men preferred in the new
reign: he is made gardener of Kensington, a place worth two
thousand pounds a-year.(122) The King and lord Bute have
certainly both of them great propensity to the arts; but Dr.
Hill, though undoubtedly not deficient in parts, has as little
claim to favour in this reign, as Gideon, the stock-jobber, in
the last; both engrossers without merit. Building, I am told, is
the King's favourite study; I hope our architects will not be
taken from the erectors of turnpikes.
(121) Dr. Hill's were among the first works in which scientific
knowledge was put in a popular shape, by the system of number
publishing. The Doctor's performances in this way are not
discreditable, and are still useful as works of reference.-C.
(122) This was an exaggeration of the emoluments of a place,
which, after all was not improperly bestowed on a person of his
pursuits and merits.-C.
Letter 61 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Jan. 22, 1761. (page 108)
I am glad you are coming, and now the time is over, that you are
coming so late, as I like to have you here in the spring. You
will find no great novelty in the new reign. Lord Denbigh(123)
is made master of the harriers, with two thousand a-year. Lord
Temple asked it, and Newcastle and Hardwicke gave into it for
fear of Denbigh's brutality in the House of Lords. Does this
differ from the style of George the Second?
The King designs to have a new motto; he will not have a French
one; so the Pretender may enjoy Dieu et mon droit in quiet.
Princess Amelia is already sick of being familiar: she has been
at Northumberland-house, but goes to nobody more. That party was
larger, but still more formal than the rest, though the Duke of
York had invited himself and his commerce-table. I played with
Madam and we were mighty well together; so well, that two nights
afterwards she commended me to Mr. Conway and Mr. Fox, but
calling me that Mr. Walpole, they did not guess who she meant.
For my part, I thought it very well, that when I played with her,
she did not call me that gentleman. As she went away, she
thanked my Lady Northumberland, like a parson's wife, for all her
civilities.
I was excessively amused on Tuesday night; there was a play at
Holland-house, acted by children; not all children, for Lady
Sarah Lenox(124) and Lady Susan Strangways(125) played the women.
It was Jane Shore; Mr. Price, Lord Barrington's nephew, was
Gloster, and acted better than three parts of the comedians.
Charles Fox, Hastings; a little Nichols, who spoke well, Belmour;
Lord Ofaly,,(126) Lord Ashbroke, and other boys did the rest: but
the two girls were delightful, and acted with so much nature and
simplicity, that they appeared the very things they represented.
Lady Sarah was more beautiful than you can conceive, and her very
awkwardness gave an air of truth to the shame of the part, and
the antiquity of the time, which was kept up by her dress, taken
out of Montfaucon. Lady Susan was dressed from Jane Seymour; and
all the parts were clothed in ancient habits, and with the most
minute propriety. I was infinitely more struck with the last
scene between the two women than ever I was when I have seen it
on the stage. When Lady Sarah was in white, with her hair about
her ears, and on the ground, no Magdalen by Corregio was half so
lovely and expressive. You would have been charmed too with
seeing Mr. Fox's little boy of six years old, who is beautiful,
and acted the Bishop of Ely, dressed in lawn sleeves and with a
square cap; they had inserted two lines for him, which he could
hardly speak plainly. Francis had given them a pretty prologue.
Adieu!
(123) Basil Fielding, sixth Earl of Denbigh, and fifth Earl of
Desmond. He died in 1800.-E.
(124) daughter of the Duke of Richmond, afterwards married to Sir
Thomas Charles Bunbury, Bart.-E.
(125) Daughter of Stephen Fox, first Earl of Ilchester; married,
in 1764, to William O'Brien, Esq.-E.
(126) Eldest son of the Marquis of Kildare.-E.
Letter 62 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Feb. 7, 1761. (page 109)
I have not written to you lately, expecting your arrival. As you
are not come yet, you need not come these ten days if you please,
for I go next week into Norfolk, that my subjects of Lynn may at
least once in their lives see me. 'Tis a horrible thing to dine
with a mayor! I shall profane King John's cup, and taste nothing
but water out of it, as if it were St. John Baptist's.
Prepare yourself for crowds, multitudes. In this reign all the
world lives in one room: the capital is as vulgar as a country
town in the season of horse-races. There were no fewer than four
of these throngs on Tuesday last, at the Duke of Cumberland's,
Princess Emily's, the Opera, and Lady Northumberland's; for even
operas, Tuesday's operas, are crowded now. There is nothing else
new. Last week there was a magnificent ball at Carleton-house:
the two royal Dukes and Princess Emily were there. He of York
danced; the other and his sister had each their table at loo. I
played at hers, and am grown a favourite; nay, have been at her
private party, and was asked again last Wednesday, but took the
liberty to excuse myself, and am yet again summoned for Tuesday.
It is triste enough: nobody sits till the game begins, and then
she and the company are all on stools. At Norfolk-house were two
armchairs placed for her and the Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of
York being supposed a dancer, but they would not use them. Lord
Huntingdon arrived in a frock, pretending he was just come out of
the country; unluckily, he had been at court, full-dressed, in
the morning. No foreigners were there but the son and
daughter-in-law of Monsieur de Fuentes: the Duchess told the
Duchess of Bedford, that she had not invited the ambassadress,
because her rank is disputed here. You remember the Bedford took
place, of madame de Mirepoix; but Madame de Mora danced first,
the Duchess of Norfolk saying she supposed that was of no
consequence.
Have you heard what immense riches old Wortley has left? One
million three hundred and fifty thousand pounds.(127) It is all
to centre in my Lady Bute; her husband is one of Fortune's
prodigies. They talk of a print, in which her mistress is
reprimanding Miss Chudleigh; the latter curtsies, and replies,
"Madame, chacun a son but."
Have you seen a scandalous letter in print, from Miss Ford,(128)
to lord Jersey, with the history of a boar's head? George Selwyn
calls him Meleager. Adieu! this is positively my last.
(127) "You see old Wortley Montagu is dead at last, at eighty-
three. It was not mere avarice and its companion abstinence, that
kept him alive so long. He every day drank, I think it was,
half-a-pint of tokay, which he imported himself from Hungary in
greater quantity than he could use, and sold the overplus for any
price he chose to set upon it. He has left better than half a
million of money." Gray, Works, vol. iii. p. 272.-E.
(128) Miss Ford was the object of an illicit, but unsuccessful
attachment, on the part of Lord Jersey, whose advances, if not
sanctioned by the lady, appear to have been sanctioned by her
father, who told her "she might have accepted the settlement his
lordship offered her, and yet not have complied" with his terms.
The following extract from the letter will explain the history
above alluded to:--"However, I must do your lordship the justice
to say, that as you conceived this meeting [one with a noble
personage which Lord Jersey had desired her not to make] would
have been most pleasing to me, and perhaps of some ,advantage,
your lordship did (in consideration of so great a disappointment)
send me, a few days after, a present of a boar's head, which I
had often had the honour to meet at your lordship's table before.
It was rather an odd first and only present from a lord to his
beloved mistress; but as coming from your lordship gave it an
additional value, which it had not in itself; and I received it
with the regard I thought due to every thing coming from your
lordship, and would have eat it, had it been eatable. I am''
impatient to acquit your lordship and myself, by showing that as
your lordship's eight hundred pounds a-year did not purchase my
person, the boar's head did not purchase my silence."-E.
Letter 63 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Monday, five o'clock, Feb. 1761. (page 110)
I am a little peevish with you-I told you on Thursday night that
I had a mind to go to Strawberry on Friday without staying for
the Qualification bill. You said it did not signify--No! What if
you intended to speak on it? Am I indifferent to hearing you?
More-Am I indifferent about acting with you? Would not I follow
you in any thing in the world?--This is saying no profligate
thing. Is there any thing I might not follow you in? You even
did not tell me yesterday that you had spoken. Yet I will tell
you all I have heard; though if there was a Point in the world in
which I could not wish you to succeed where you wish yourself,
perhaps it would be in having you employed. I cannot be cool
about your danger; yet I cannot know any thing that concerns you,
and keep it from you. Charles Townshend called here just after I
came to town to-day. Among other discourse he told me of your
speaking on Friday, and that your speech was reckoned hostile to
the Duke of Newcastle. Then talking of regiments going abroad,
he said, * * * * * With regard to your reserve to me, I
can easily believe that your natural modesty made you unwilling
to talk of yourself to me. I don't suspect you of any reserve to
me: I only mention it now for an occasion of telling you, that I
don't like to have any body think that I would not do whatever
you do. I am of no consequence: but at least it would give me
some, to act invariably with you; and that I shall most certainly
be ever ready to do. Adieu!
Letter 64 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, March 7, 1761. (page 111)
I rejoice, you know, in whatever rejoices you, and though I am
not certain what your situation(129) is to be, I am glad you go,
as you like it. I am told it is black rod. lady Anne
Jekyll(130) said, she had written to you on Saturday night. I
asked when her brother was to go, if before August; she answered:
"Yes, if possible." long before October you may depend upon it;
in the quietest times no lord lieutenant ever went so late as
that. Shall not you come to town first? You cannot pack up
yourself, and all you will want, at Greatworth.
We are in the utmost hopes of a peace; a Congress is agreed upon
at Augsbourg, but yesterday's mail brought bad news. Prince
Ferdinand has been obliged to raise the siege of Cassel, and to
retire to Paderborn; the hereditary prince having been again
defeated, with the loss of two generals, and to the value of five
thousand men, in prisoners and exchanged. If this defers the
peace it will be grievous news to me, now Mr. Conway is gone to
the army.
The town talks of nothing but an immediate Queen, yet I am
certain the ministers know not of it. Her picture is come, and
lists of her family given about; but the latter I do not send
you, as I believe it apocryphal. Adieu!
P.S. Have you seen the -,advertisement of a new noble author? A
Treatise of Horsemanship, by Henry Earl of Pembroke!(131) As
George Selwyn said of Mr. Greville, "so far from being a writer,
I thought he was scarce a courteous reader."
(129) Mr. Montagu was appointed usher of the black rod in
Ireland.
(130) sister of the Earl of Halifax.
(131) Tenth Earl of Pembroke and seventh Earl of Montgomery. The
work was entitled "Military Equitation; or a Method of breaking
Horses, and teaching Soldiers to ride." A fourth edition, in
quarto, appeared in 1793.-E.
Letter 65 To The Rev. Henry Zouch.
Arlington Street, March 7, 1761. (page 111)
Just what I supposed, Sir, has happened; with your good breeding,
I did not doubt but you would give yourself the trouble of
telling me that you had received the Lucan, and as you did not, I
concluded Dodsley had neglected it: he has in two instances. The
moment they were published, I delivered a couple to him, for you,
and one for a gentleman in Scotland. I received no account of
either, and after examining Dodsley a fortnight ago, I learned
three days since from him, that your copy, Sir, was delivered to
Mrs. Ware, bookseller, in Fleet Street, who corresponds with Mr.
Stringer, to be sent in the first parcel; but, says he, as they
send only once a month, it probably was not sent away till very
later),. I am vexed, Sir, that you have waited so long
for this trifle: if you neither receive it, nor get information
of it, I will immediately convey another to you. It would be
very ungrateful in me to neglect what would give you a moment's
amusement, after your thinking so obligingly of the painted glass
for me. I shall certainly be in Yorkshire this summer, and as I
flatter myself that I shall be more lucky in meeting you, I will
then take what you shall be so good as to bestow on me, without
giving you the trouble of sending it.
If it were not printed in the London Chronicle, I would
transcribe for you, Sir, a very weak letter of Voltaire to Lord
Lyttelton,(132) and the latter's answer: there is nothing else
new, but a very indifferent play,(133) called The Jealous Wife,
so well acted as to have succeeded greatly. Mr. Mason, I
believe, is going to publish some elegies: I have seen the
principal one, on Lady Coventry; it was then only an unfinished
draft. The second and third volumes of
Tristram Shandy, the dregs of nonsense, have universally met the
contempt they deserve: genius may be exhausted;--I see that
folly's invention may be so too.
The foundations of my gallery at Strawberry are laying. May I
not flatter myself, Sir, that you will see the whole even before
it is quite complete?
P. S. Since I wrote my letter, I have read a new play of
Voltaire's, called Tancred, and I am glad to say that it repairs
the idea of his decaying parts, which I had conceived from his
Peter the Great, and the letter I mentioned. Tancred did not
please at Paris, nor was I charmed with the two first acts; in
the three last are great flashes of genius, single lines, and
starts of passion of the first fire: the woman's part is a little
too Amazonian.
(132) An absurd letter from Voltaire to the author of the
Dialogues of the Dead, remonstrating against a statement, that
"he, Voltaire, was in exile, on account of some blamable freedoms
in his writings." He denies both the facts and the cause
assigned; but he convinced nobody, for both were notoriously
true. Voltaire was, it is true, not banished by sentence; but he
was not permitted to reside in France, and that surely may be
called exile, particularly as he was all his life endeavouring to
obtain leave to return to Paris.-C.
(133) The Jealous Wife still keeps the stage, and does not
deserve to be so slightingly spoken of: but there were private
reasons which might possibly warp Mr. Walpole's judgment on the
works of Colman. He was the nephew of lord Bath, and The Jealous
Wife was dedicated to that great rival of Sir Robert Walpole.-C.
[Dr. Johnson says.-that the Jealous Wife, "though not written
with much genius, was yet so well exhibited by the actors, that
it was crowded for near twenty nights."]
Letter 66 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, March 17, 1761. (page 112)
If my last letter raised your wonder, this Will not allay it.
Lord Talbot is lord steward! The stone, which the builders
refused, is become the head-stone of the corner. My Lady Talbot,
I suppose, would have found no charms in Cardinal Mazarin. As
the Duke of Leeds was forced to give way to Jemmy Grenville, the
Duke of Rutland has been obliged to make room for this new Earl.
Lord Huntingdon is groom of the stole, and the last Duke I have
named, master of the horse; the red liveries cost Lord Huntingdon
a pang. Lord Holderness has the reversion of the Cinque-ports
for life, and I think may pardon his expulsion.
If you propose a fashionable assembly, you must send cards to
Lord Spenser, Lord Grosvenor, Lord Melcomb, Lord Grantham, Lord
Boston, Lord Scarsdale, Lady Mountstuart, the Earl of TyrConnell,
and Lord Wintertown. The two last you will meet in Ireland. No
joy ever exceeded your cousin's or Doddington's: the former came
last night to Lady Hilsborough's to display his triumph; the
latter too was there, and advanced to me. I said, ":I was coming
to wish you joy." "I concluded so," replied he, "and came to
receive it." He left a good card yesterday at Lady Petersham's, a
very young lord to wait on Lady Petersham, to make her ladyship
the first offer of himself. I believe she will be content with
the exchequer: Mrs. Grey has a pension of eight hundred pounds
a-year.
Mrs. Clive is at her villa for Passion week; I have written to
her for the box, but I don't doubt of its being (,one; but,
considering her alliance, why does not Miss Price bespeak the
play and have the stage box?
I shall smile if Mr. Bentley, and M`Untz, and their two Hannahs
meet at St. James's; so I see neither of them, I care not where
they are.
Lady Hinchinbrook and Lady Mansel are at the point of death; Lord
Hardwicke is to be poet-laureate; and, according to modern usage,
I suppose it will be made a cabinet-counsellor's place. Good
night!
Letter 67 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, March 19, 1761. (page 113)
I can now tell you, with great pleasure, that your cousin(134) is
certainly named lord-lieutenant. I wish you joy. You will be
sorry too to hear that your Lord North is much talked of for
succeeding him at the board of' trade. I tell you this with
great composure, though today has been a day of amazement. All
the world is staring, whispering, and questioning. Lord
Holderness has resigned the seals,(135) and they are given to
Lord Bute. Which of the two secretaries of state is first
minister? the latter or Mr. Pitt? Lord Holderness received the
command but yesterday, at two o'clock, till that moment thinking
himself extremely well at court; but it seems the King said he
was tired of having two secretaries, of which one would do
nothing, and t'other could do nothing; he would have a secretary
who both could act and would. Pitt had as
short a notice of this resolution as the sufferer, and was little
better pleased. He is something softened for the present by the
offer of cofferer for Jemmy Grenville, which is to be ceded by
the Duke of Leeds, who returns to his old post of justice in
eyre, from whence Lord Sandys is to be removed, some say to the
head of the board of trade. Newcastle, who enjoys this fall of
Holderness's, who had deserted him for Pitt, laments over the
former, but seems to have made his terms with the new favourite:
if the Bedfords have done so too, will it surprise you? It will
me, if Pitt submits to this humiliation; if he does not, I take
for granted the Duke of Bedford will have the other seals. The
temper with which the new reign has hitherto proceeded, seems a
little impeached by this sudden act, and the Earl now stands in
the direct light of a minister-, if the House of Commons should
cavil at him. Lord Delawar kissed hands to-day for his earldom;
the other new peers are to follow on Monday.
There are horrid disturbances about the militia(136) in
Northumberland, where the mob have killed an officer and three of
the Yorkshire militia, who, in return, fired and shot twenty-one.
Adieu! I shall be impatient to hear some consequences of my first
paragraph.
P. S. Saturday.--I forgot to tell you that Lord Hardwicke has
written some verses to Lord Lyttelton, upon those the latter made
on Lady Egremont.(137) If I had been told that he had put on a
bag, and was gone off with Kitty Fisher,(138) I should not have
been more astonished.
Poor Lady Gower(139) is dead this morning of a fever in her
lying-in. I believe the Bedfords arc very sorry; for there is a
new opera(140) this evening.
(134) The Earl of Halifax.
(135) Lord Barrington, in a letter to Mr. Mitchell, of the 23d
says, "Our friend Holderness is finally in harbour; he has four
thousand a-year for life, with the reversionship of the Cinque-
ports, after the Duke of Dorset; which he likes better than
having the name of pensioner. I never could myself understand
the difference between a pension and a synecure place."-E.
(136) In consequence of the expiration of the three years' term
of service, prescribed by the Militia-act, and the new ballot
about to take place.-E.
(137) The following are the lines alluded to, "Addition extempore
to the verses on Lady Egremont:
"Fame heard with pleasure--straight replied,
First on my roll stands Wyndham's bride,
My trumpet oft I've raised to sound
Her modest praise the world around;
But notes were wanting-canst thou find
A muse to sing her face, her mind?
Believe me, I can name but one,
A friend of yours-'tis Lyttelton."
(138) A celebrated courtesan of the day.-E.
(139) Daughter of Scroope Duke of Bridgewater.
(140) The serious opera of Tito Manlio, by Cocchi. By a letter
from Gray to Mason, of the 22d of January, the Opera appears at
this time to have been in a flourishing condition--"The Opera is
crowded this year like any ordinary theatre. Elisi is finer than
any thing that has been here in your memory; yet, as I suspect,
has been finer than he is: he appears to be near forty, a little
potbellied and thick-shouldered, otherwise no bad figure; has
action proper, and not ungraceful. We have heard nothing, since
I remember operas, but eternal passages, divisions, and flights
of execution: of these he has absolutely none; whether merely
from judgment, or a little from age, I will not affirm: his point
is expression, and to that all the ornaments he inserts (which
are few and short) are evidently directed. He gets higher, they
say, than Farinelli; but then this celestial note you do not hear
above once in a whole opera; and he falls from this altitude at
once to the mellowest, softest, Strongest tones (about the middle
of his compass) that can be heard. The Mattei, I assure you, is
much improved by his example, and by her great success this
winter; but then the burlettas and the Paganina, I have not been
so pleased with any thing these many years. She is too fat, and
above forty, yet handsome withal, and has a face that speaks the
language of all nations. She has not the invention, the fire,
and the variety of action that the Spiletta had; yet she is
light, agile, ever in motion, and above all, graceful; but then,
her voice, her ear, her taste in singing; good God! as Mr.
Richardson, the painter, says." Works, vol. iii. p. 268.-E.
Letter 68 To George Montagu, Esq.
March 21, 1761. (page 115)
Of the enclosed, as you perceive, I tore off the seal, but it has
not been opened. I grieve at the loss of your suit, and for the
injustice done you, but what can one expect but injury, when
forced to have recourse to law! Lord Abercorn asked me this
evening, if it was true that you are going to Ireland? I gave a
vague answer, and did not resolve him how much I knew of it. I
am impatient for the answer to your compliment.
There is not a word of newer news than what I sent you last. The
Speaker has taken leave, and received the highest compliments,
and substantial ones too; he did not over-act, and it was really
a handsome scene.(141) I go to my election on Tuesday, and, if I
do not tumble out of the chair, and break my neck, you shall hear
from me at my return. I got the box for Miss Rice; Lady
Hinchinbrook is dead.
(141) Mr, Onslow held the office of Speaker of the House of
Commons for above thirty-three years, and during part of that
time enjoyed the lucrative employment of treasurer of the navy:
"notwithstanding which," says Mr Hatsell, "it is an anecdote
perfectly well known, that on his quitting the Chair, his income
from his private fortune, which had always been inconsiderable,
Was rather less than it had been in 1727, when he was first
elected into it. Superadded to his great and accurate knowledge
of the history of this country, and of the minuter forms and
proceedings of Parliament, the distinguishing features of his
character were a regard and veneration for the British
constitution, as it was declared at and established at the
Revolution."-E.
letter 69 To George Montagu, Esq.
Houghton, March 25, 1761. (page 115)
Here I am at Houghton! and alone! in this spot, where (except two
hours last month) I have not been in sixteen years! Think what a
crowd of reflections! No; Gray, and forty churchyards, could not
furnish so many: nay, I know one must feel them with greater
indifference than I possess, to have the patience to put them
into verse. Here I am, probably for the last time of my life,
though not for the time: every clock that strikes tells me I am
an hour nearer to yonder church--that church, into which I have
not yet had courage to enter, where lies that mother on whom I
doated, and who doated on me! There are the two rival mistresses
of Houghton, neither of whom ever wished to enjoy it! There too
lies he who founded its greatness; to contribute to whose fall
Europe was embroiled; there he sleeps in quiet and dignity, while
his friend and his foe, rather his false ally and real enemy,
Newcastle and Bath, are exhausting the dregs of their pitiful
lives in squabbles and pamphlets.
The surprise the pictures(142) gave me is again renewed;
accustomed for many years to see nothing but wretched daubs and
varnished copies at auctions, I look at these as enchantment. My
own description of them seems poor; but shall I tell you truly,
the majesty of Italian ideas almost sinks before the warm nature
of Flemish colouring. Alas! don't I grow old? My young
imagination was fired with Guido's ideas; must they be plump and
prominent as Abishag to warm me now? Does great youth feel with
poetic limbs, as well as see with poetic eyes? In one respect I
am very young, I cannot satiate myself with looking: an incident
contributed to make me feel this more strongly. A party arrived
just as I did, to see the house, a man and three women In riding
dresses, and they rode post through the apartments. I could not
hurry before them fast enough; they were not so long in seeing
for the first time, as I could have been in one room, to examine
what I knew by heart. I remember formerly being often diverted
with this kind of seers; they come, ask what such a room is
called, in which Sir Robert lay, write it down, admire a lobster
on a cabbage in a market-piece, dispute whether the last room was
green or purple, and then hurry to the inn for fear the fish
should be over-dressed. How different my sensations! not a
picture here but recalls a history; not one, but I remember in
Downing-street or Chelsea, where queens and crowds admired them,
though seeing them as little as these travellers!
When I had drank tea, I strolled into the garden; they told me it
was now called the pleasure-ground. What a dissonant idea of
pleasure! those groves, those all`ees, where I have passed so
many charming moments, are now stripped up or over-grown--many
fond paths I could not unravel, though with a very exact clew in
my memory: I met two gamekeepers, and a thousand hares In the
days when all my soul was tuned to pleasure and vivacity (and you
will think, perhaps, it is far from being out of tune yet), I
hated Houghton and its solitude; yet I loved this garden, as now,
with many regrets, I love Houghton; Houghton, I know not what to
call it, monument of grandeur or ruin! How I have wished this
evening for Lord Bute! how I could preach to him! For myself, I
do not want to be preached to; I have long considered, how every
Balbec must wait for the chance of a Mr. Wood. The servants
wanted to lay me in the great apartment-what, to make me pass my
night as I have done my evening! It were like Proposing to
Margaret Roper(143) to be a duchess in the court that cut off her
father's head, and imagining it would please her. I have chosen
to sit in my father's little dressing-room, and am now by his
scrutoire, where, in the heights of his fortune, he used to
receive the accounts of his farmers, and deceive himself, or us,
with the thoughts of his economy. How wise a man at once, and
how weak! For what has he built Houghton? for his grandson to
annihilate, or for his son to mourn over. If Lord Burleigh could
rise and view his representative driving the Hatfield stage, he
would feel as I feel now.(144) Poor little Strawberry! at least
it will not be stripped to pieces by a descendant! You will find
all these fine meditations dictated by pride, not by philosophy.
Pray consider through how many mediums philosophy must pass,
before it is purified--
"how often must it weep, how often burn!"
My mind was extremely prepared for all this gloom by parting with
Mr. Conway yesterday morning; moral reflections or commonplaces
are the livery one likes to wear, when one has just had a real
misfortune. He is going to Germany: I was glad to dress myself
up in transitory Houghton, in lieu of very sensible concern.
To-morrow I shall be distracted with thoughts, at least images of
very different complexion. I go to Lynn, and am to be elected on
Friday. I shall return hither on Saturday, again alone, to
expect Burleighides on Sunday, whom I left at Newmarket. I must
once in my life see him on his grandfather's throne.
Epping, Monday night, thirty-first.-No, I have not seen him; he
loitered on the road, and I was kept at Lynn till yesterday
morning. It is plain I never knew for how many trades I was
formed, when at this time of day I can begin electioneering, and
succeed in my new vocation.. Think of me, the subject of a mob,
who was scarce ever before in a mob, addressing them in the
town-hall, riding at the head of two thousand people through such
a town as Lynn, dining with above two hundred of them, amid
bumpers, huzzas, songs, and tobacco, and finishing with country
dancing at a ball and sixpenny whisk! I have borne it all
cheerfully; nay, have sat hours in conversation, the thing upon
earth that I hate; have been to hear misses play on the
harpsichord, and to see an alderman's copies of Rubens and Carlo
Marat. Yet to do the folks justice, they are sensible, and
reasonable, and civilized; their very language is polished since
I lived among them. I attribute this to their more frequent
intercourse with the world and the capital, by the help of good
roads and postchaises, which, if they have abridged the King's
dominions, have at least tamed his subjects. Well, how
comfortable it will be to-morrow, to see my parroquet, to play at
loo, and not be obliged to talk seriously! The Heraclitus of the
beginning of this letter will be overjoyed on finishing it to
sign himself your old friend, Democritus.
P. S. I forgot to tell you that my ancient aunt Hammond came over
to Lynn to see me; not from any affection, but curiosity. The
first thing she said to me, though we have not met these sixteen
years, was, ,Child, you have done a thing to-day, that your
father never did in all his life; you sat as they carried you,--
he always stood the whole time." "Madam," said I, "when I am
placed in a chair, I conclude I am to sit in it; besides, as I
cannot imitate my father in great things, I am not at all
ambitious of mimicking him in little ones." I am sure she
proposes to tell her remarks to my uncle Horace's ghost, the
instant they meet.
(142) This magnificent collection of pictures was sold to the
Empress of Russia, and some curious particulars relative to the
sale will be found in Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature. A series
Of engravings was likewise made from them, which was published in
1788, under the title of "The Houghton Gallery: a collection of
prints, from the best pictures in the possession of the Earl of
Orford."-E.
(143) Wife,, of William Roper, Esq. and eldest and favourite
daughter of Sir Thomas More. She bought the head of her
ill-fated parent, when it was about to be thrown into the Thames,
after having been affixed to London bridge, and on being
questioned by the Privy Council about her conduct, she boldly
replied, that she had done so that "it might not become food for
fishes." She survived her father nine years, and died at the age
of thirty-six, in 1544, and was buried at St. Dunstan's church,
Canterbury; the box containing her father's head being placed on
her coffin.-E.
(144) the prayer of Sir Robert Walpole, recorded on the
foundation-stone, was, that "after its master, to a mature old
age, had long enjoyed it in perfection, his latest descendants
might safely possess it to the end of time."-E.
Letter 70 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, April 10, 1761. (page 118)
If Prince Ferdinand had studied how to please me, I don't know
any method he could have lighted upon so likely to gain my heart,
as being beaten out of the field before you joined him. I
delight in a hero that is driven so far that nobody can follow
him. He is as well at Paderborn, as where I have long wished the
King of Prussia, the other world. You may frown if you please at
my imprudence, you who are gone with all the disposition in the
world to be well with your commander; the peace is in a manner
made, and the anger of generals will not be worth sixpence these
ten years. We peaceable folks are now to govern the world, and
you warriors must in your turn tremble at our Subjects the mob,
as we have done before your hussars and court-martials.
I am glad you had so pleasant a passage.(145) My Lord Lyttelton
would say, that Lady Mary Coke, like Venus, smiled over the
waves, et mare prestabat eunti. in truth, when she could tame
me, she must have had little trouble with the ocean. Tell me how
many burgomasters she has subdued, or how many would have fallen
in love with her if they had not fallen asleep! Come, has she
saved two-pence by her charms? Have they abated a farthing of
their impositions for her being handsomer than any thing in the
seven provinces? Does she know how political her journey is
thought? Nay, my Lady Ailesbury, you are not out of the scrape;
you are both reckoned des Mar`echale de Guebriant,(146) going to
fetch, and consequently govern the young queen. There are more
jealousies about your voyage, than the Duke of Newcastle would
feel if Dr. Shaw had prescribed a little ipecacuanha to my Lord
Bute.
I am sorry I must adjourn my mirth, to give Lady Ailesbury a
pang; poor Sir Harry Bellendine(147) is dead; he made a great
dinner at Almac's for the House of Drummond, drank very hard,
caught a violent fever, and died in a very few days. Perhaps you
will have heard this before; I shall wish so; I do not like, even
innocently, to be the cause of sorrow.
I do not at all lament Lord Granby's leaving the army, and your
immediate succession. There are persons in the world who would
gladly ease you of this burden. As you are only to take the
vice-royalty of a coop, and that for a few weeks, I shall but
smile if you are terribly distressed. Don't let Lady Ailesbury
proceed to Brunswick: you might have had a wife who would not
have thought it so terrible to fall into the hands [arms] of
hussars; but as I don't take that to be your Countess's turn,
leave her with the Dutch, who are not so boisterous as Cossacks
or chancellors of the exchequer.
My love, my duty, my jealousy, to Lady Mary, if she is not sailed
before you receive this--if she is, I shall deliver them myself
Good night! I write immediately on the receipt of your letter,
but you see I have nothing yet new to tell you.
(145) From Harwich to Holvoetsluys.
(146) The Mar`echale de Gu`ebriant was sent to the King of Poland
with the character of ambassadress by Louis Xiii. to accompany
the Princess Marie de Gonzague, who had been married by proxy to
the King of Poland at Paris.
(147) Uncle to the Countess of Ailesbury.
Letter 71 To Sir David Dalrymple.(148)
Arlington Street, April 14, 1761. (page 119)
Sir, I have deferred answering the favour of your last, till I
could tell you that I had seen Fingal. Two journeys into Norfolk
for my election, and other accidents, prevented my seeing any
part of the poem till this last week, and I have yet only seen
the first book. There are most beautiful images in it, and it
surprises one how the bard could strike out so many shining ideas
from a few so very simple objects, as the moon, the storm, the
sea, and the heath, from whence he borrows almost all his
allusions. The particularizing of persons, by "he said," "he
replied," so much objected to in Homer, is so wanted in
Fingal,(149) that it in some measure justifies the Grecian
Highlander; I have even advised Mr. Macpherson (to prevent
confusion) to have the names prefixed to the speeches, as in a
play. It is too obscure without some such aid. My doubts of the
genuineness are all vanished.
I fear, sir, from Dodsley's carelessness, you have not received
the Lucan. A gentleman in Yorkshire, for whom I consigned
another copy at the same time with yours, has got his but within
this fortnight. I have the pleasure to find, that the notes are
allowed the best of Dr. Bentley's remarks on poetic authors.
Lucan was muscular enough to bear his rough hand.
Next winter I hope to be able to send you Vertue's History of the
Arts, as I have put it together from his collections. Two
volumes are finished, the first almost printed and the third
begun. There will be a fourth, I believe, relating solely to
engravers. You will be surprised, sir, how the industry of one
man could at this late period amass so near a complete history of
our artists. I have no share in it, but in arranging his
materials. Adieu!
(148) Now first collected.
(149) "For me," writes Gray, it this time, to Dr. Wharton, "I
admire nothing but Fingal; yet I remain still in doubt about the
authenticity of these poems, though inclining rather to believe
them genuine in spite of the worio. Whether they are the
inventions of antiquity, or of a modern Scotchman, either case to
me is alike unaccountable. Je m'y perds." Dr. Johnson, on the
contrary, all along denied their authenticity. "The subject,"
says Boswell, "having been introduced by Dr. Fordyce, Dr. Blair,
relying on the external evidence of their antiquity, asked
Johnson whether he thought any man of modern age could have
written such poems? Johnson replied, 'Yes, Sir, many men, many
women, and many children.' He, at this time, did not know that
Dr. Blair had just published a dissertation, not only defending
their authenticity, but seriously ranking them with the poems of
Homer and Virgil; and when he was afterwards informed of this
circumstance, he expressed some displeasure at Dr. Fordyce's
having suggested the topic, and said, 'I am not sorry that they
got thus much for their pains: Sir, it was like leading one to
talk of a book, when the author is concealed behind the
door.'"-E.
Letter 72 To The Countess Of Suffolk.(150)
Friday night, April 1761. (page 120)
We are more successful, Madam, than I could flatter myself we
should be. Mr. Conway--and I need say no more--has negotiated so
well, that the Duke of Grafton is disposed to bring Mr.
Beauclerk(151) in for Thetford. It will be expected, I believe,
that Lord Vere should resign Windsor in a handsome manner to the
Duke of Cumberland. It must be your ladyship's part to prepare
this; which I hope will be the means of putting an end to these
unhappy differences. My only fear now is, lest the Duke should
have promised the Lodge.' Mr. Conway writes to Lord Albemarle,
who is yet at Windsor, to prevent this, if not already done, till
the rest is ready to be notified to the Duke of Cumberland. Your
ladyship's good sense and good heart make it unnecessary for me
to say more.
(150) Now first collected.
(151) The Hon. Aubrey Beauclerk, son of Lord Vere; afterwards
Duke of St. Albans.
Letter 73 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, April 16, 1761. (page 121)
You are a very mule; one offers you a handsome stall and manger
in Berkeley Square, and you will not accept it. I have chosen
your coat, a claret colour, to suit the complexion of the country
you are going to visit; but I have fixed nothing about the lace.
Barrett had none of gauze, but what were as broad as the Irish
Channel. Your tailor found a very reputable one at another
place, but I would not determine rashly; it will be two or
three-and-twenty shillings the yard: you might have a very
substantial real lace,' which would wear like your buffet, for
twenty. The second order of gauzes are frippery, none above
twelve shillings, and those tarnished, for the species are out of
fashion. You will have time to sit in judgment upon these
important points; for Hamilton(152) your secretary told me at the
Opera two nights ago, that he had taken a house near Busby, and
hoped to be in my neighbourhood for four months.
I was last night at your plump Countess's who is so shrunk, that
she does not seem to be composed of above a dozen hassocs. Lord
Guildford rejoiced mightily over your preferment. The Duchess of
Argyle was playing there, not knowing that the great Pam was just
dead,, to wit, her brother-in-law. He was abroad in the morning,
was seized with a palpitation after dinner, and was dead before
the surgeon could arrive. There's the crown of Scotland too
fallen upon my Lord Bute's head! Poor Lord Edgecumbe is still
alive, and may be so for some days; the physicians, who no longer
ago than Friday se'nnight persisted that he had no dropsy, in
order to prevent his having Ward,(153) on Monday last proposed
that Ward should be called in, and at length they owned they
thought the mortification begun. It is not clear it is yet; at
times he is in his senses, and entirely so, composed, clear, and
most rational; talks of his death, and but yesterday, after such
a conversation with his brother, asked for a pencil to amuse
himself with drawing. What parts, genius, agreeableness thrown
away at a hazard table, and not permitted the chance of being
saved by the villainy of physicians!
You will be pleased with the Anacreontic, written by Lord
Middlesex upon Sir Harry Bellendine: I have not seen any thing so
antique for ages; it has all the fire, poetry, and simplicity of
Horace.
"Ye sons of Bacchus, come and join
in solemn dirge, while tapers shine
Around the grape-embowered shrine
Of honest Harry Bellendine.
Pour the rich juice of Bourdeaux's wine,
Mix'd with your falling tears of brine,
In full libation o'er the shrine
Of honest Harry Bellendine.
Your brows let ivy chaplets twine,
While you push round the sparkling wine,
And let your table be the shrine
Of honest Hairy Bellendine."
He died in his vocation, of a high fever, after the celebration
of some orgies. Though but six hours in his senses, he gave a
proof of his usual good humour, making it his last request to the
sister Tuftons to be reconciled; which they are. His pretty
villa, in my neighbourhood, I fancy he has left to the new Lord
Lorn. I must tell you an admirable bon-mot of George Selwyn,
though not a new one; when there was a malicious report that the
eldest Tufton was to marry Dr. Duncan, Selwyn said, "How often
will she repeat that line of Shakspeare,
"Wake Duncan with this knocking--would thou couldst!"