I am here quite alone, and did not think of going to town till
Friday for the opera, which I have not yet seen. In compliment
to you and your Countess, I will make an effort, and be there on
Thursday; and will either dine with you at your own house, or at
your brother's; which you choose. This is a great favour, and
beyond my Lord Temple's journey to dine with my Lord Mayor.(1096)
I am so sick of the follies of all sides, that I am happy to be
at quiet here, and to know no more of them than what I am forced
to see in the newspapers; and those I skip over as fast as I can.
The account you give me of Lady *** was just the same as I
received from Paris. I will show you a very particular letter I
received by a private hand from France; which convinces me that I
guessed right, contrary to all the wise, that the journey to
Fontainbleau would overset Monsieur de Choiseul. I think he
holds but by a thread, which will snap soon.(1097) I am
labouring hard with the Duchess(1098) to procure the Duke of
Richmond satisfaction in the favour he has asked about his
duchy;' but he shall not know it till it is completed, if I can
be so lucky as to succeed. I think I shall, if they do not fall
immediately.
You perceive how barren I am, and why I have not written to you.
I pass my time in clipping and pasting prints; and do not think I
have read forty pages since I came to England. I bought a poem
called Trinculo's Trip to the Jubilee; having been struck with
two lines in an extract in the papers,
"There the ear-piercing fife,
And the ear-piercing wife--"
Alas! all the rest, and it is very long, is a heap of
unintelligible nonsense, about Shakspeare, politics, and the Lord
knows what. I am grieved that, with our admiration of
Shakspeare, we can do nothing but write worse than ever he did.
One would think the age studied nothing but his Love's Labour
Lost, and Titus Andronicus. Politics and abuse have totally
corrupted our taste. Nobody thinks of writing a line that is to
last beyond the next fortnight. We might as well be given up to
a controversial divinity, The times put me in mind of the
Constantinopolitan empire; where, in an age of learning, the
subtlest wits of Greece contrived to leave nothing behind them,
but the memory of their follies and acrimony. Milton did not
write his Paradise Lost till he had Outlived his politics. With
all his parts, and noble sentiments of liberty, who would
remember him for his barbarous prose? Nothing is more true than
that extremes meet. The licentiousness of the press makes us as
savage as our Saxon ancestors, who could only set their marks;
and an outrageous pursuit of individual independence, grounded on
selfish views, extinguishes genius as much as despotism does.
The public good of our country is never thought of by men that
hate half their country. Heroes confine their ambition to be
leaders of the mob. Orators seek applause from their faction,
not from posterity; and ministers forget foreign enemies, to
defend themselves against a majority in Parliament. When any
Caesar has conquered Gaul, I will excuse him for aiming at the
perpetual dictature. If he has only jockeyed somebody out of the
borough of Veii or Falernum, it is too impudent to call himself a
patriot or a statesman. Adieu!
(1096) At Guildhall, on the 9th of November, in the second
mayoralty of Alderman Beckford.-E.
(1097) Walpole had received a letter, of the 2d, from Madame du
Deffand, describing the growing influence of Madame du Barry, and
her increasing enmity to the Duc de Choiseul.-E.
(1098) The Duchess of Aubign`e.
Letter 375 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 14, 1769. (page 562)
I cannot be silent, when I feel for you. I doubt not but the
loss of Mrs. Trevor is very sensible to you, and I am heartily
sorry for you. One cannot live any time, and not perceive the
world slip away, as it were, from under one's feet: one's
friends, one's connexions drop off, and indeed reconcile one to
the same passage; but why repeat these things? I do not mean to
write a fine consolation; all I intended was to tell you, that I
cannot be indifferent to what concerns you.
I know as little how to amuse you: news there are none but
politics, and politics there will be as long as we have a
shilling left. They are no amusement to me, except in seeing two
or three sets of people worry one another, for none of whom I
care a straw.
Mr. Cumberland has produced a comedy called The Brothers. It
acts well, but reads ill; though I can distinguish strokes of Mr.
Bentley in it. Very few of the characters are marked, and the
serious ones have little nature, and the comic ones are rather
too much marked; however, the three middle acts diverted me very
well.(1099)
I saw the Bishop of Durham(1100) at Carlton House, who told me he
had given you a complete suit of armour. I hope you will have no
occasion to lock yourself in it, though, between the fools and
the knaves of the present time, I don't know but we may be
reduced to defend our castles. If you retain any connexions with
Northampton, I should be much obliged to you if you could procure
from thence a print of an Alderman Backwell.(1101) It is
valuable for nothing but its rarity, and it is not to be met with
but there. I would give eight or ten shillings rather than not
have it. When shall you look towards us?, how does your brother
John? make my compliments to him. I need not say how much I am
yours ever.
(1099) "The Brothers," Cumberland's first comedy, came out at
Covent-Garden theatre on the 2d of December, and met with no
inconsiderable success.-E.
(1100) The Hon. Dr. Richard Trevor, consecrated Bishop of St.
David's in 1744, and translated to the see of Durham in 1762. He
died in June 1771.-E.
(1101) Edward Backwell, alderman of London, of whom Granger gives
the following character:--"He was a banker of great ability,
industry, integrity, and very extensive credit. With such
qualifications, he, in a trading nation, would, in the natural
event of things, have made a fortune, except in such an age as
that of charles the Second, when the laws were overborne by
perfidy, violence, and rapacity; or in an age when bankers become
gamesters, instead of merchant-adventurers; when they affect to
live like princes, and are, with their miserable creditors, drawn
into the prevailing vortex of luxury. Backwell carried on his
business in the same shop which was afterwards occupied by Child.
He, to avoid a prison, retired into Holland, where he died. His
body was brought for sepulture to Tyringham church, near Newport
Pagnel." Frequent mention of the Alderman is made by Pepys, in
whose Diary is the following entry:--"April 12, 1669. This
evening, coming home, we overtook Alderman Backwell's coach and
his lady, and followed them to their house, and there made them
the, first visit, where they received us with extraordinary
civility, and owning the obligation But I do, contrary to my
expectation, find her something a proud and vainglorious woman,
in telling the number of her servants and family, and expenses;.
He is also so, but he was ever of that strain. But here he
showed me the model of his houses that he is going to build in
Cornhill and Lombard-street; but he has purchased so much there
that it looks like a little town, and must have cost him a great
deal of money."-E.
Letter 376 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.(1102)
Arlington Street, Dec. 21, 1769. (page 563)
Dear sir,
I am very grateful for all your communications, and for the
trouble you are so good as to take for me. I am glad you have
paid Jackson, Though he is not only dear, (for the prints he has
got for me are very common,) but they are not what I wanted, and
I do not believe were mentioned in my list. However, as paying
him dear for what I do not want, may encourage him to hunt for
what I do want, I am very well content he should cheat me a
little. I take the liberty of troubling you with a list I have
printed (to avoid copying it several times), and beg you will be
so good as to give it to him, telling him these are exactly what
I do want, and no others. I will pay him well for any of these,
and especially those marked thus x; and still more for those with
double or treble marks. The print I want most is the Jacob Hall.
I do not know whether it is not one of the London Cries, but he
must be very sure it is the right. I will let you know certainly
when Mr. West comes to town, who has one.
I shall be very happy to contribute to your garden: and if you
will let me have exact notice in February how to send the shrubs,
they shall not fail you; nor any thing else by which I can pay
you any part of my debts. I am much pleased with the Wolsey and
Cromwell, and beg to thank you and the gentleman from whom they
came. Mr. Tyson's etchings will be particulary acceptable. I
did hope to have seen or heard of him in October. Pray tell him
he is a visit in my debt, and that I will trust him no longer
than to next summer. Mr. Bentham, I find, one must trust and
trust without end. It is pity so good a sort of man should be so
faithless. Make my best compliments, however, to him and to my
kind host and hostess.
I found my dear old blind friend at Paris perfectly well, and am
returned so myself. London is very sickly, and full of bilious
fevers, that have proved fatal to several persons, and in my Lord
Gower's family have even seemed contagious. The weather is
uncommonly hot, and we want frost to purify the air.
I need not say, I suppose, that the names scratched out in my
list are of such prints as I have got since I printed it, and
therefore what I no longer want. If Mr. Jackson only stays at
Cambridge till the prints drop into his mouth, I shall never have
them. If he would take the trouble of going to Bury, Norwich,
Ely, Huntingdon, and such great towns, nay, look about in inns, I
do not doubt but he would find at least some of them. He should
be no loser by taking pains for me; but I doubt he chooses to be
a great gainer without taking any. I shall not pay for any that
are not in my list; but I ought not to trouble you, dear Sir,
with these particulars. It is a little your own fault, for you
have spoiled me.
Mr. Essex distresses me by his civility. I certainly would not
have given him that trouble, if I had thought he would not let me
pay him. Be so good as to thank him for me, and to let me know
if there is any other way I could return the obligation. I hope,
at least, he will make me a visit at Strawberry Hill, whenever he
comes westward. I shall be very impatient to see you, dear Sir,
both there and at Milton. Your faithful humble servant.
(1102) Now first printed, from the original in the British
Museum.-E.