STRAWBERRY HILL, _Oct._ 21, 1758.
Sir,--Every letter I receive from you is a new obligation, bringing me
new information: but, sure, my Catalogue was not worthy of giving you so
much trouble. Lord Fortescue is quite new to me; I have sent him to the
press. Lord Dorset's[1] poem it will be unnecessary to mention
separately, as I have already said that his works are to be found among
those of the minor poets.
[Footnote 1: Lord Dorset, Lord Chamberlain under Charles II., author of
the celebrated ballad "To all you ladies now on land," and patron of
Dryden and other literary men, was honourably mentioned as such by
Macaulay in c. 8 of his "History," and also for his refusal, as
Lord-Lieutenant of Essex, to comply with some of James's illegal
orders.]
I don't wonder, Sir, that you prefer Lord Clarendon to Polybius[1]; nor
can two authors well be more unlike: the _former_ wrote a general
history in a most obscure and almost unintelligible style; the _latter_,
a portion of private history, in the noblest style in the world. Whoever
made the comparison, I will do them the justice to believe that they
understood bad Greek better than their own language in its elevation.
For Dr. Jortin's[2] Erasmus, which I have very nearly finished, it has
given me a good opinion of the author, and he has given me a very bad
one of his subject. By the Doctor's labour and impartiality, Erasmus
appears a begging parasite, who had parts enough to discover truth, and
not courage enough to profess it: whose vanity made him always writing;
yet his writings ought to have cured his vanity, as they were the most
abject things in the world. _Good Erasmus's honest mean_ was alternate
time-serving. I never had thought much about him, and now heartily
despise him.
[Footnote 1: "_You prefer Lord Clarendon to Polybius._" It is hard to
understand this sentence. Lord Clarendon did _not_ write a general
history, but an account of a single event, "The Great Rebellion." It was
Polybius who wrote a "Universal History," of which, however, only five
books have been preserved, the most interesting portion of which is a
narrative of Hannibal's invasion of Italy and march over the Alps in the
Second Punic War.]
[Footnote 2: Dr. Jortin was Archdeacon of London; and, among other
works, had recently published a life of the celebrated Erasmus, the
mention of whom by Pope, which Walpole presently quotes, is not very
unfairly interpreted by Walpole.]
When I speak my opinion to you, Sir, about what I dare say you care as
little for as I do, (for what is the merit of a mere man of letters?) it
is but fit I should answer you as sincerely on a question about which
you are so good as to interest yourself. That my father's life is likely
to be written, I have no grounds for believing. I mean I know nobody
that thinks of it. For, myself, I certainly shall not, for many reasons,
which you must have the patience to hear. A reason to me myself is, that
I think too highly of him, and too meanly of myself, to presume I am
equal to the task. They who do not agree with me in the former part of
my position, will undoubtedly allow the latter part. In the next place,
the very truths that I should relate would be so much imputed to
partiality, that he would lose of his due praise by the suspicion of my
prejudice. In the next place, I was born too late in his life to be
acquainted with him in the active part of it. Then I was at school, at
the university, abroad, and returned not till the last moments of his
administration. What I know of him I could only learn from his own mouth
in the last three years of his life; when, to my shame, I was so idle,
and young, and thoughtless, that I by no means profited of his leisure
as I might have done; and, indeed, I have too much impartiality in my
nature to care, if I could, to give the world a history, collected
solely from the person himself of whom I should write. With the utmost
veneration for his truth, I can easily conceive, that a man who had
lived a life of party, and who had undergone such persecution from
party, should have had greater bias than he himself could be sensible
of. The last, and that a reason which must be admitted, if all the
others are not--his papers are lost. Between the confusion of his
affairs, and the indifference of my elder brother to things of that
sort, they were either lost, burnt, or what we rather think, were stolen
by a favourite servant of my brother, who proved a great rogue, and was
dismissed in my brother's life; and the papers were not discovered to be
missing till after my brother's death. Thus, Sir, I should want vouchers
for many things I could say of much importance. I have another personal
reason that discourages me from attempting this task, or any other,
besides the great reluctance that I have to being a voluminous author.
Though I am by no means the learned man you are so good as to call me in
compliment; though, on the contrary, nothing can be more superficial
than my knowledge, or more trifling than my reading,--yet, I have so
much strained my eyes, that it is often painful to me to read even a
newspaper by daylight. In short, Sir, having led a very dissipated life,
in all the hurry of the world of pleasure, I scarce ever read but by
candlelight, after I have come home late at nights. As my eyes have
never had the least inflammation or humour, I am assured I may still
recover them by care and repose. I own I prefer my eyes to anything I
could ever read, much more to anything I could write. However, after
all I have said, perhaps I may now and then, by degrees, throw together
some short anecdotes of my father's private life and particular story,
and leave his public history to more proper and more able hands, if such
will undertake it. Before I finish on this chapter, I can assure you he
did forgive my Lord Bolingbroke[1]--his nature was forgiving: after all
was over, and he had nothing to fear or disguise, I can say with truth,
that there were not _three_ men of whom he ever dropped a word with
rancour. What I meant of the clergy not forgiving Lord Bolingbroke,
alluded not to his doctrines, but to the direct attack and war he made
on the whole body. And now, Sir, I will confess my own weakness to you.
I do not think so highly of that writer, as I seem to do in my book; but
I thought it would be imputed to prejudice in me, if I appeared to
undervalue an author of whom so many persons of sense still think
highly. My being Sir Robert Walpole's son warped me to praise, instead
of censuring Lord Bolingbroke. With regard to the Duke of Leeds,[2] I
think you have misconstrued the decency of my expression. I said,
_Burnet_[3] _had treated him severely_; that is, I chose that Burnet
should say so, rather than myself. I have never praised where my heart
condemned. Little attentions, perhaps, to worthy descendants, were
excusable in a work of so extensive a nature, and that approached so
near to these times. I may, perhaps, have an opportunity, at one day or
other of showing you some passages suppressed on these motives, which
yet I do not intend to destroy.
[Footnote 1: Sir R. Walpole was so far from having any personal quarrel
with Bolingbroke, that he took off so much of his outlawry as banished
him, though he would not allow him to take his seat in the House of
Peers.]
[Footnote 2: This celebrated statesman was originally Sir Thomas
Osborne. On the dissolution of the Cabal Ministry he was raised to the
peerage as Earl of Danby, and was appointed Lord Treasurer. An attempt
to impeach him, which was prompted by Louis XIV., was baffled by
Charles. Under William III. he was appointed President of the Council,
being the recognised leader of the Tory section of the Ministry; and in
the course of the reign he was twice promoted--first to be Marquis of
Carmarthen, and subsequently to be Duke of Leeds.]
[Footnote 3: Burnet, the Bishop of Salisbury, to whose "Memoirs of His
Own Time" all subsequent historians are greatly indebted. He accompanied
William to England as his chaplain.]
Crew,[1] Bishop of Durham, was as abject a tool as possible. I would be
very certain he is an author before I should think him worth mentioning.
If ever you should touch on Lord Willoughby's sermon, I should be
obliged for a hint of it. I actually have a printed copy of verses by
his son, on the marriage of the Princess Royal; but they are so
ridiculously unlike measure, and the man was so mad and so poor, that I
determined not to mention him.
[Footnote 1: Crew was Bishop of Durham. He is branded by Macaulay (c. 6)
as "mean, vain, and cowardly." He accepted a seat on James's
Ecclesiastical Commission, and when "some of his friends represented to
him the risk which he ran by sitting on an illegal tribunal, he was not
ashamed to answer that he could not live out of the royal smile."]
If these details, Sir, which I should have thought interesting to no
mortal but myself, should happen to amuse you, I shall be glad; if they
do not, you will learn not to question a man who thinks it his duty to
satisfy the curiosity of men of sense and honour, and who, being of too
little consequence to have secrets, is not ambitious of the less
consequence of appearing to have any.
P.S.--I must ask you one question, but to be answered entirely at your
leisure. I have a play in rhyme called "Saul," said to be written by a
peer. I guess Lord Orrery. If ever you happen to find out, be so good to
tell me.
_WALPOLE'S MONUMENT TO SIR HORACE'S BROTHER--ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF
THE KING OF PORTUGAL--COURTESY OF THE DUC D'AIGUILLON TO HIS ENGLISH
PRISONERS._