You are sensible, my dear lord, that any amusement from my letters must
depend upon times and seasons. We are a very absurd nation (though the
French are so good at present as to think us a very wise one, only
because they, themselves, are now a very weak one); but then that
absurdity depends upon the almanac. Posterity, who will know nothing of
our intervals, will conclude that this age was a succession of events. I
could tell them that we know as well when an event, as when Easter, will
happen. Do but recollect these last ten years. The beginning of October,
one is certain that everybody will be at Newmarket, and the Duke of
Cumberland will lose, and Shafto win, two or three thousand pounds.
After that, while people are preparing to come to town for the winter,
the Ministry is suddenly changed, and all the world comes to learn how
it happened, a fortnight sooner than they intended; and fully persuaded
that the new arrangement cannot last a month. The Parliament opens;
everybody is bribed; and the new establishment is perceived to be
composed of adamant. November passes, with two or three self-murders,
and a new play. Christmas arrives; everybody goes out of town; and a
riot happens in one of the theatres. The Parliament meets again; taxes
are warmly opposed; and some citizen makes his fortune by a
subscription. The opposition languishes; balls and assemblies begin;
some master and miss begin to get together, are talked of, and give
occasion to forty more matches being invented; an unexpected debate
starts up at the end of the session, that makes more noise than anything
that was designed to make a noise, and subsides again in a new peerage
or two. Ranelagh opens and Vauxhall; one produces scandal, and t'other a
drunken quarrel. People separate, some to Tunbridge, and some to all the
horse-races in England; and so the year comes again to October. I dare
to prophesy, that if you keep this letter, you will find that my future
correspondence will be but an illustration of this text; at least, it is
an excuse for my having very little to tell you at present, and was the
reason of my not writing to you last week.
[Illustration: HORACE WALPOLE.
_From a picture in the National Portrait Gallery, by Nathaniel Hone,
R.A._]
Before the Parliament adjourned, there was nothing but a trifling debate
in an empty House, occasioned by a motion from the Ministry, to order
another physician and surgeon to attend Wilkes:[1] it was carried by
about seventy to thirty, and was only memorable by producing Mr. Charles
Townshend, who, having sat silent through the question of privilege,
found himself interested in the defence of Dr. Brocklesby![2] Charles
ridiculed Lord North extremely, and had warm words with George
Grenville. I do not look upon this as productive of consequential
speaking for the opposition; on the contrary, I should expect him sooner
in place, if the Ministry could be fools enough to restore weight to
him, and could be ignorant that he can never hurt them so much as by
being with them. Wilkes refused to see Heberden and Hawkins, whom the
House commissioned to visit him; and to laugh at us more, sent for two
Scotchmen, Duncan and Middleton. Well! but since that, he is gone off
himself: however, as I did in D'Eon's case, I can now only ask news of
him from you, not tell you any; for you have got him. I do not believe
you will invite him, and make so much of him, as the Duke of Bedford
did. Both sides pretend joy at his being gone; and for once I can
believe both. You will be diverted, as I was, at the cordial esteem the
ministers have for one another; Lord Waldegrave told my niece [Lady
Waldegrave], this morning, that he had offered a shilling, to receive a
hundred pounds when Sandwich shall lose his head! what a good opinion
they have of one another! _apropos_ to losing heads, is Lally[3]
beheaded?
[Footnote 1: Wilkes had been wounded in a duel, and alleged his wound as
a sufficient reason for not attending in his place in the House of
Commons when summoned. Dr. Brocklesby, a physician of considerable
eminence, reported that he was unable to attend; but the House of
Commons, as if they distrusted his report, appointed two other
physicians to examine the patient, Drs. Heberden and Hawkins.]
[Footnote 2: Dr. Brocklesby is mentioned by Boswell as an especial
friend of Johnson; having even offered him an annuity of £100 to relieve
him from the necessity of writing to increase his income.]
[Footnote 3: Count Lally, of an Irish family, his father or grandfather
having been among those who, after the capitulation of Limerick,
accompanied the gallant Sarsfield to France, had been the French
governor in India; but, having failed in an attempt on Madras, and
having been afterwards defeated at Wandewash by Colonel Coote, was
recalled in disgrace, and brought to trial on a number of ridiculously
false charges, convicted, and executed; his real offence being that by a
somewhat intemperate zeal for the reformation of abuses, and the
punishment of corruption which he detested, he had made a great number
of personal enemies. He was the father of Count Lally Tollendal, who was
a prominent character in the French Revolution.]
The East India Company have come to an unanimous resolution of not
paying Lord Clive the three hundred thousand pounds, which the Ministry
had promised him in lieu of his Nabobical annuity. Just after the
bargain was made, his old rustic of a father was at the King's levée;
the King asked where his son was; he replied, "Sire, he is coming to
town, and then your Majesty will have another vote." If you like these
franknesses, I can tell you another. The Chancellor [Northington] is a
chosen governor of St. Bartholomew's Hospital: a smart gentleman, who
was sent with the staff, carried it in the evening, when the Chancellor
happened to be drunk. "Well, Mr. Bartlemy," said his lordship, snuffing,
"what have you to say?" The man, who had prepared a formal harangue, was
transported to have so fair opportunity given him of uttering it, and
with much dapper gesticulation congratulated his lordship on his health,
and the nation on enjoying such great abilities. The Chancellor stopped
him short, crying, "By God, it is a lie! I have neither health nor
abilities; my bad health has destroyed my abilities."[1] The late
Chancellor [Hardwicke] is much better.
[Footnote 1: Lord Northington had been a very hard liver. He was a
martyr to the gout; and one afternoon, as he was going downstairs out of
his Court, he was heard to say to himself, "D--- these legs! If I had
known they were to carry a Lord Chancellor, I would have taken better
care of them;" and it was to relieve himself of the labours of the Court
of Chancery that he co-operated with Mr. Pitt in the discreditable
intrigue which in the summer of 1766 compelled the resignation of Lord
Rockingham, Mr. Pitt having promised him the office of President of the
Council in the new Ministry which he intended to form.]
The last time the King was at Drury-lane, the play given out for the
next night was "All in the Wrong:" the galleries clapped, and then cried
out, "Let _us_ be all in the right! Wilkes and Liberty!" When the King
comes to a theatre, or goes out, or goes to the House, there is not a
single applause; to the Queen there is a little: in short, _Louis le
bien aimé_[1] is not French at present for King George.
[Footnote 1: "Le Bien aimé" was a designation conferred on Louis XV. by
the people in their joy at his recovery from an illness which had
threatened his life at Metz in 1744. Louis himself was surprised, and
asked what he had done to deserve such a title; and, in truth, it was a
question hard to answer; but it was an expression of praise for his
leaving the capital to accompany his army in the campaign.]
I read, last night, your new French play, "Le Comte de Warwic,"[1] which
we hear has succeeded much. I must say, it does but confirm the cheap
idea I have of you French: not to mention the preposterous perversion
of history in so known a story, the Queen's ridiculous preference of old
Warwick to a young King; the omission of the only thing she ever said or
did in her whole life worth recording, which was thinking herself too
low for his wife, and too high for his mistress; the romantic honour
bestowed on two such savages as Edward and Warwick: besides these, and
forty such glaring absurdities, there is but one scene that has any
merit, that between Edward and Warwick in the third act. Indeed, indeed,
I don't honour the modern French: it is making your son but a slender
compliment, with his knowledge, for them to say it is extraordinary. The
best proof I think they give of their taste, is liking you all three. I
rejoice that your little boy is recovered. Your brother has been at
Park-place this week, and stays a week longer: his hill is too high to
be drowned.
[Footnote 1: "Le Comte de Warwic" was by La Harpe, who was only
twenty-three years of age. The answer here attributed to Elizabeth
Woodville has been attributed to others also; and especially to Mdlle.
de Montmorency, afterwards Princesse de Condé, when pursued by the
solicitations of Henry IV.]
Thank you for your kindness to Mr. Selwyn: if he had too much
impatience, I am sure it proceeded only from his great esteem for you.
I will endeavour to learn what you desire; and will answer, in another
letter, that and some other passages in your last. Dr. Hunter is very
good, and calls on me sometimes. You may guess whether we talk you over
or not. Adieu!
_A NEW YEAR'S PARTY AT LADY SUFFOLK'S--LADY TEMPLE POETESS LAUREATE TO
THE MUSES_