WINDSOR, _Oct._ 24, 1746.
Well, Harry, Scotland is the last place on earth I should have thought
of for turning anybody poet: but I begin to forgive it half its treasons
in favour of your verses, for I suppose you don't think I am the dupe of
the Highland story that you tell me: the only use I shall make of it is
to commend the lines to you, as if they really were a Scotchman's. There
is a melancholy harmony in them that is charming, and a delicacy in the
thoughts that no Scotchman is capable of, though a _Scotchwoman_ might
inspire it.[1] I beg, both for Cynthia's sake and my own, that you
would continue your De Tristibus till I have an opportunity of seeing
your muse, and she of rewarding her: _Reprens la musette, berger
amoureux_! If Cynthia has ever travelled ten miles in fairy-land, she
must be wondrous content with the person and qualifications of her
knight, who in future story will be read of thus: Elmedorus was tall and
perfectly well made, his face oval, and features regularly handsome, but
not effeminate; his complexion sentimentally brown, with not much
colour; his teeth fine, and forehead agreeably low, round which his
black hair curled naturally and beautifully. His eyes were black too,
but had nothing of fierce or insolent; on the contrary, a certain
melancholy swimmingness, that described hopeless love rather than a
natural amorous languish. His exploits in war, where he always fought by
the side of the renowned Paladine William of England, have endeared his
memory to all admirers of true chivalry, as the mournful elegies which
he poured out among the desert rocks of Caledonia in honour of the
peerless lady and his heart's idol, the incomparable Cynthia, will for
ever preserve his name in the flowery annals of poesy.
[Footnote 1: Walpole could not foresee the genius of Burns, that before
his own death was to shed such glory on Scotland. His compliment to a
Scotchwoman was an allusion to Lady Aylesbury (_née_ Miss Caroline
Campbell), whom Conway married after her husband's death, which took
place a few months after the date of this letter. Lady Aylesbury was no
poetess, but his estimate of what might be accomplished by Scotch ladies
was afterwards fully borne out by Lady Anne Lindsay, the authoress of
"Auld Gray," and Lady Nairn.]
What a pity it is I was not born in the golden age of Louis the
Fourteenth, when it was not only the fashion to write folios, but to
read them too! or rather, it is a pity the same fashion don't subsist
now, when one need not be at the trouble of invention, nor of turning
the whole Roman history into romance for want of proper heroes. Your
campaign in Scotland, rolled out and well be-epitheted, would make a
pompous work, and make one's fortune; at sixpence a number, one should
have all the damsels within the liberties for subscribers: whereas now,
if one has a mind to be read, one must write metaphysical poems in blank
verse, which, though I own to be still easier, have not half the
imagination of romances, and are dull without any agreeable absurdity.
Only think of the gravity of this wise age, that have exploded
"Cleopatra and Pharamond," and approve "The Pleasures of the
Imagination," "The Art of Preserving Health," and "Leonidas!" I beg the
age's pardon: it has done approving these poems, and has forgot them.
Adieu! dear Harry. Thank you seriously for the poem. I am going to town
for the birthday, and shall return hither till the Parliament meets; I
suppose there is no doubt of our meeting then.
Yours ever.
P.S.--Now you are at Stirling, if you should meet with Drummond's
History of the five King Jameses, pray look it over. I have lately read
it, and like it much. It is wrote in imitation of Livy; the style
masculine, and the whole very sensible; only he ascribes the misfortunes
of one reign to the then king's loving architecture and
In trim gardens taking pleasure.
_HE HAS BOUGHT STRAWBERRY HILL._