ARLINGTON STREET, _Jan._ 29, 1762.
I wish you joy, sir minister; the Czarina [Elizabeth] is dead. As _we
conquered America in Germany_,[1] I hope we shall overrun Spain by this
burial at Petersburg. Yet, don't let us plume ourselves too fast;
nothing is so like a Queen as a King, nothing so like a predecessor as a
successor. The favourites of the Prince Royal of Prussia, who had
suffered so much for him, were wofully disappointed, when he became the
present glorious Monarch; they found the English maxim true, that the
King never dies; that is, the dignity and passions of the Crown never
die. We were not much less defeated of our hopes on the decease of
Philip V. The Grand Duke[2] [Peter III.] has been proclaimed Czar at the
army in Pomerania; he may love conquest like that army, or not know it
is conquering, like his aunt. However, we cannot suffer more by this
event. I would part with the Empress Queen, on no better a prospect.
[Footnote 1: "_We conquered America in Germany._" This is a quotation
from a boastful speech of Mr. Pitt's on the conquest of Canada.]
[Footnote 2: The Grand Duke (Peter III.) was married, for his
misfortune, to Catharine, a princess of Anhalt-Zerbzt, whose lover,
Count Orloff, murdered him before the end of the summer, at his wife's
command; and in August she assumed the government, and was crowned with
all due solemnity as Czarina or Empress. Walpole had some reason for
saying that "nothing was so like a predecessor as a successor," since in
character Elizabeth closely resembled Catharine.]
We have not yet taken the galleons, nor destroyed the Spanish fleet. Nor
have they enslaved Portugal, nor you made a triumphant entry into
Naples. My dear sir, you see how lucky you were not to go thither; you
don't envy Sir James Grey, do you? Pray don't make any categorical
demands to Marshal Botta,[1] and be obliged to retire to Leghorn,
because they are not answered. We want allies; preserve us our friend
the Great Duke of Tuscany. I like your answer to Botta exceedingly, but
I fear the Court of Vienna is shame-proof. The Apostolic and Religious
Empress is not a whit a better Christian, not a jot less a woman, than
the late Russian Empress, who gave such proofs of her being a _woman_.
[Footnote 1: Marshal Botta was the Commander-in-chief in Tuscany.]
We have a mighty expedition on the point of sailing; the destination not
disclosed. The German War loses ground daily; however, all is still in
embryo. My subsequent letters are not likely to be so barren, and
indecisive. I write more to prove there is nothing, than to tell you
anything.
You were mistaken, I believe, about the Graftons; they do not remove
from Turin, till George Pitt arrives to occupy their house there. I am
really anxious about the fate of my letter to the Duchess [of Grafton];
I should be hurt if it had miscarried; she would have reason to think me
very ungrateful.
I have given your letter to Mr. T[homas] Pitt; he has been very
unfortunate since his arrival--has lost his favourite sister in
child-bed. Lord Tavistock, I hear, has written accounts of you that give
me much pleasure.
I am ashamed to tell you that we are again dipped into an egregious
scene of folly. The reigning fashion is a ghost[1]--a ghost, that would
not pass muster in the paltriest convent in the Apennine. It only knocks
and scratches; does not pretend to appear or to speak. The clergy give
it their benediction; and all the world, whether believers or infidels,
go to hear it. I, in which number you may guess, go to-morrow; for it is
as much the mode to visit the ghost as the Prince of Mecklenburgh, who
is just arrived. I have not seen him yet, though I have left my name for
him. But I will tell you who is come too--Lady Mary Wortley.[2] I went
last night to visit her; I give you my honour, and you who know her,
would credit me without it, the following is a faithful description. I
found her in a little miserable bedchamber of a ready-furnished house,
with two tallow candles, and a bureau covered with pots and pans. On her
head, in full of all accounts, she had an old black-laced hood, wrapped
entirely round, so as to conceal all hair or want of hair. No
handkerchief, but up to her chin a kind of horseman's riding-coat,
calling itself a pet-en-l'air, made of a dark green (green I think it
had been) brocade, with coloured and silver flowers, and lined with
furs; boddice laced, a foul dimity petticoat sprig'd, velvet muffeteens
on her arms, grey stockings and slippers. Her face less changed in
twenty years than I could have imagined; I told her so, and she was not
so tolerable twenty years ago that she needed have taken it for
flattery, but she did, and literally gave me a box on the ear. She is
very lively, all her senses perfect, her languages as imperfect as ever,
her avarice greater. She entertained me at first with nothing but the
dearness of provisions at Helvoet. With nothing but an Italian, a
French, and a Prussian, all men servants, and something she calls an
_old_ secretary, but whose age till he appears will be doubtful; she
receives all the world, who go to homage her as Queen Mother,[3] and
crams them into this kennel. The Duchess of Hamilton, who came in just
after me, was so astonished and diverted, that she could not speak to
her for laughing. She says that she has left all her clothes at Venice.
I really pity Lady Bute; what will the progress be of such a
commencement!
[Footnote 1: It was known as the Cock-lane Ghost. A girl in that lane
asserted that she was nightly visited by a ghost, who could reveal a
murder, and who gave her tokens of his (or its) presence by knocks and
scratches, which were audible to others in the room besides herself; and
at last she went so far as to declare that the ghost had promised to
attend a witness, who might be selected, into the vault under the Church
of St. John's, Clerkenwell, where the body of the supposed victim was
buried. Her story caused such excitement, that at last Dr. Johnson, Dr.
Douglas (afterwards Bishop of Salisbury), and one or two other
gentlemen, undertook an investigation of the affair, which proved beyond
all doubt that it was a trick, though they could not discover how it was
performed, nor could they make the girl confess; and Johnson wrote an
account of their investigations and verdict, which was published in _The
Gentleman's Magazine_ and the newspapers of the day (Boswell's "Life of
Johnson," ann. 1763).]
[Footnote 2: Lady Mary Wortley was a daughter of the Duke of Kingston
and wife of Mr. Wortley, our ambassador at Constantinople. She was the
most accomplished lady of the eighteenth century. Christian Europe is
indebted to her for the introduction of the practice of inoculation for
the smallpox, of which she heard during her residence in Turkey, and of
the efficacy of which she was so convinced that she caused her own
children to be inoculated; and, by publishing its success in their case,
she led to its general adoption. It saved innumerable lives in the
eighteenth century, and was, in fact, the parent of the vaccination
which has superseded it, and which is merely inoculation with matter
derived from another source, the cow. She was also an authoress of
considerable repute for lyric odes and _vers de société_, &c., and,
above all, for her letters, most of which are to her daughter, Lady Bute
(as Mme. de Sévigné's are to her daughter, Mme. de Grignan), and which
are in no respect inferior to those of the French lady in sprightly wit,
while in the variety of their subjects they are far superior, as giving
the account of Turkish scenery and manners, and also of those of other
countries which her husband visited on various diplomatic missions,
while Mme. de Sévigné's are for the greater part confined to the gossip
of the coteries of Paris. Her works occupy five volumes; but what we
have is but a small part of what we might have had. D'Israeli points out
that "we have lost much valuable literature by the illiberal or
malignant descendants of learned and ingenious persons. Many of Lady
Mary Wortley Montague's letters have been destroyed, I am informed, by
her daughters, who imagined that the family honours were lowered by the
addition of those of literature. Some of her best letters, recently
published, were found buried in an old trunk. It would have mortified
her ladyship's daughter to have heard that her mother was the Sévigné of
Britain" ("Curiosities of Literature," i. 54); and, as will be seen in a
subsequent letter (No. 67), Walpole corroborates D'Israeli. Lady Mary
was at one time a friend and correspondent of Pope, who afterwards, for
some unknown reason, quarrelled with her, and made her the subject of
some of the most disgraceful libels that ever proceeded from even his
pen.]
[Footnote 3: She was mother of Lady Bute, wife of the Prime
Minister.--WALPOLE.]
The King of France has avowed a natural son,[1] and given him the estate
which came from Marshal Belleisle, with the title of Comte de Gisors.
The mother I think is called Matignon or Maquignon. Madame Pompadour
was the Bathsheba that introduced this Abishag. Adieu, my dear sir!
[Footnote 1: This was a false report.--WALPOLE.]
_HIS OWN "ANECDOTES OF PAINTING"--HIS PICTURE OF THE WEDDING OF HENRY
VII.--BURNET'S COMPARISON OF TIBERIUS AND CHARLES II.--ADDISON'S
"TRAVELS."_