1749
13 Letter 1
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, March 4, 1749.
I have been so shut up in the House of Commons for this last
fortnight or three weeks, that I have not had time to write you
a line: we have not had such a session since the famous
beginning of last Parliament. I am come hither for a day or
two of rest and air, and find the additional pleasure of great
beauty in my improvements: I could talk to you through the
whole sheet, and with much more satisfaction, upon this head;
but I shall postpone my own amusement to yours, for I am sure
you want much more to know what has been doing in Parliament
than at Strawberry Hill. You will conclude that we have been
fighting over the peace; but we have not. It is laid before
Parliament, but will not be taken up; the Opposition foresee
that a vote of approbation would pass, and therefore will not
begin upon it, as they wish to reserve it for censure in the
next reign--or perhaps the next reign does not care to censure
now what he must hereafter maintain--and the ministry do not
seem to think their treaty so perfect as not to be liable to
blame, should it come to be canvassed. We have been then upon
several other matters: but first I should tell you, that from
the utmost tranquillity and impotence of a minority, there is
at once started up so formidable an Opposition as to divide 137
against 203.(1) The minority is headed by the Prince, who has
continued opposing, though very unsuccessfully, ever since the
removal of Lord Granville, and the desertion of the patriots.
He stayed till the Pelhams had brought off every man of parts
in his train, and then began to form his party. Lord Granville
has never come into it., for fear of breaking with the King; and
seems now to be patching up again with his old enemies. If Lord
Bath has dealt with the Prince, it has been underhand. His
ministry has had at the head of it poor Lord Baltimore, a very
good-natured, weak, honest man; and Dr. Lee, a civilian, who was
of Lord Granville's admiralty, and is still much attached to him.
He is a grave man, and a good speaker, but of no very bright
parts, and, from his way of life and profession, much ignorant
of, and unfit for, a ministry. You will wonder what new
resources the Prince has discovered-why, he has found them all
in Lord Egmont, whom you have heard of under the name of Lord
Perceval; but his father, an Irish Earl, is lately dead. As he
is likely to make a very considerable figure in our history, I
shall give you a more particular account of him. He has always
earnestly studied our history and constitution and antiquities,
with very ambitious views; and practised speaking early in the
Irish Parliament. Indeed, this turn is his whole fund, for
though he is between thirty and forty, he knows nothing of the
world, and is always unpleasantly dragging the conversation to
political dissertations. When very young, as he has told me
himself, he dabbled in writing Craftsmen and penny-papers; but
the first event that made him known, was his carrying the
Westminster election at the end of my father's ministry,-which
he amply described in the history of his own family, a
genealogical work called "The History of the House of
Yvery,"(2) a work which cost him three thousand pounds, as the
heralds informed Mr. Chute and me, when we went to their office
on your business; and which was so ridiculous, that he has
since tried to suppress all the copies. It concluded with the
description of the Westminster election, in these or some such
words, "And here let us leave this young nobleman struggling
for the dying liberties of his country!" When the change in
the ministry happened, and Lord Bath was so abused by the
remnant of the patriots, Lord Egmont published his celebrated
pamphlet, called "Faction Detected," a work which the Pitts and
Lytteltons have never forgiven him; and which, though he
continued voting and sometimes speaking with the Pelhams, made
him quite unpopular during all the last Parliament. When the
new elections approached, he stood on his own bottom at Weobly
in Herefordshire; but his election being contested, be applied
for Mr. Pelham's support, who carried it for him in the House
of Commons. This will always be a material blot in his life;
for he had no sooner secured his seat, than he openly attached
himself to the Prince, and has since been made a lord of his
bedchamber. At the opening of this session, he published an
extreme good pamphlet, which has made infinite noise, called
"An Examination of the Principles and Conduct of the two
Brothers," (the Pelhams,) and as Dr. Lee has been laid up with
the gout, Egmont has taken the lead in the Opposition, and has
made as great a figure as perhaps was ever made in so short a
time. He is very bold and resolved, master of vast knowledge,
and speaks at once with fire and method. His words are not
picked and chosen like Pitt's, but his language is useful, clear,
and strong. He has already by his parts and resolution mastered
his great unpopularity, so far as to be heard with the utmost
attention, though I believe nobody had ever more various
difficulties to combat. All the old corps hate him on my father
and Mr. Pelham's account; the new part of the ministry on their
own. The Tories have not quite forgiven his having left them in
the last Parliament: besides that, they are now governed by one
Prowse, a cold, plausible fellow. and a great well-wisher to
Mr. Pelham. Lord Strange,(3) a busy Lord of a party by
himself, yet voting generally with the Tories, continually
clashes with Lord Egmont; and besides all this, there is a
faction in the Prince's family, headed by Nugent, who are for
moderate measures.
Nugent is most affectedly an humble servant of Mr. Pell)afn,
and seems only to have attached himself to the Prince, in order
to make the better bargain with the ministry; he has great
parts, but they never know how to disentangle themselves from
bombast and absurdities. Besides those, there are two young
men who make some figure in the rising Opposition, Bathurst(4)
attorney to the Prince; and Potter, whom I believe you have had
mentioned in my letters of last year; but he has a bad
constitution, and is seldom able to be in town. Neither of
these are in the scale of moderation.
The Opposition set out this winter with trying to call for
several negotiations during the war; but the great storm which
has so much employed us of late, was stirred up by Colonel
Lyttelton;(5) who, having been ill-treated by the Duke, has
been dealing with the Prince. He discovered to the House some
innovations in the Mutiny-bill, of which, though he could not
make much, the Opposition have, and fought the bill for a whole
fortnight; during the course of which the world has got much
light into many very arbitrary proceedings of the
Commander-in-chief,(6) which have been the more believed too by
the defection of my Lord Townshend's(7) eldest son, who is one of
his aide-de-camps. Though the ministry, by the weight of
numbers, have carried their point in a great measure, yet you may
be sure great heats have been raised; and those have been still
more inflamed by a correspondent practice in a new Navy-bill,
brought in by the direction of Lord Sandwich and Lord Anson,
but vehemently opposed by half the fleet, headed by Sir Peter
Warren, the conqueror of Cape Breton, richer than Anson, and
absurd as Vernon. The bill has even been petitioned against,
and the mutinous were likely to go great lengths, if' the
admiralty had not bought off some by money, and others by
relaxing in the material points.- We began upon it yesterday,
and are still likely to have a long affair of it-so much for
politics: and as for any thing else, I scarce know any thing
else. My Lady Huntingdon,(8) the Queen of the Methodists, has
got her daughter named for lady of the bedchamber to the
Princesses; but it is all off again. as she will not let her
play at cards on Sundays. It is equally absurd on both sides,
to refuse it, or to insist upon it.
Pray tell Dr. Cocchi that I shall be extremely ready to do him
any service in his intended edition of the old Physicians,(9)
but that I fear it is a kind of work that will lie very little
within my sphere to promote. Learning is confined to very
narrow bounds at present, and those seldom within the circle in
which I necessarily live; but my regard for him and for you
would make me take any pains. You see, I believe, that I do
take pains for you--I have not writ such a letter to any body
these three years. Adieu!
P. S. I am very sorry for your sake that the Prince and
Princess(10) are leaving Florence; if ever I return thither, as
I always flatter myself I shall, I should miss them extremely.
Lord Albemarle goes ambassador to Paris.
(1) Upon the last clause of the Mutiny-bill, an amendment to
render half pay officers subject to the act, only in case of
actual war, insurrection, rebellion, or invasion, was rejected
by 203 to 137.-E.
(2) Compiled principally for Lord Egmont by Anderson, the
genealogist. It was printed, but not published, in 1742. "
Some," says Boswell, in his Life of Johnson, "have affected to
laugh at the History of the House of Very: it would be well if
many others would transmit their pedigrees to posterity, with
the same accuracy and generous zeal with which the noble Lord
who compiled that work has honoured and perpetuated his
ancestry. Family histories, likv, the imagines majorum of the
ancients, excite to virtue." Vol. viii. p. 188.-E.
(3) James, Lord Strange, eldest son of Edward Stanley, eleventh
Earl of Derby. In 1762 he was made Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster, and died during his father's life-time, in 1771. He
always called himself Lord Strange; though the title, which was
a barony in fee, had in fact descended to the Duke of Atholl,
as heir general of James, seventh Earl of Derby.-]).
(4) The Hon. Henry Bathurst, second heir of Allen, first Lord
Bathurst, He became heir to the title upon the death, without
issue, of his elder brother, the Hon. Benjamin Bathurst, in
1761. In 1746 he was appointed Attorney-General to Frederick,
Prince of Wales; in 1754, one of the puisne judges of the Court
of Common Pleas, and in 1771, Lord Chancellor. He was, upon
this occasion, created a peer, by the title of Lord Apsley. He
succeeded his father as second Earl Bathurst in 1775, and died
in 1794.-D.
(5) Richard, third son of Sir Thomas, and brother of Sir George
Lyttelton: he married the Duchess-dowager of Bridgewater, and
was afterwards made a knight of the Bath.
(6) William Duke of Cumberland. He was "Captain-general of the
Forces," having been so created in 1745.-D.
(7) George Townshend, afterwards the first Marquis of that name
and title.-D.
(8) Selina, daughter of Washington, Earl Ferrers, and widow of
Theophilus, Earl of Huntingdon.
(9) In 1754, Dr. Cocchi published his "Chirurgici Veteres," a
very curious work, containing numerous valuable extracts from
the Greek physicians.-E.
(10) Craon.
16 Letter 2
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, March 23, 1749.
Our debates on the two military bills, the naval one of which
is not yet finished, have been so tedious, that they have
rather whittled down the Opposition than increased it. In the
Lords, the Mutiny-bill passed pretty easily, there happening no
quarrel between Lord Bathurst and Lord Bath on the method of
their measures; so there never divided above sixteen in the
minority, and those scarce any of the Prince's Lords. Duke
William was there and voted, which was too indecent in a rigorous
bill calculated for his own power. There is a
great disunion among the ministers on the Naval bill: Mr.
Pelham and Pitt (the latter out of hatred and jealousy of Lord
Sandwich) gave up the admiralty in a material point, but the
paramount little Duke of Bedford has sworn that they shall
recant on the report-what a figure they will make! This bill
was chiefly of Anson's projecting, who grows every day into new
unpopularity.(11) He has lately had a sea-piece drawn of the
victory for which he was lorded, in which his own ship in a
cloud of cannon was boarding the French Admiral. This
circumstance, which was as true as if Mademoiselle Scudery had
written his life (for he was scarce in sight when the Frenchman
struck to Boscawen)(12) has been so ridiculed by the whole
tar-hood, that the romantic part has been forced to be
cancelled, and one only gun remains firing at Anson's ship.
The two Secretaries of State(13) grow every day nearer to a
breach; the King's going abroad is to decide the contest.
Newcastle, who Hanoverizes more and more every day, pushes on
the journey, as he is to be the attendant minister: his
lamentable brother is the constant sacrifice of all these
embroils.
At the Leicester-house the jars are as great: Doddington, who
has just resigned the treasuryship of the navy, in hopes of
once more governing that court (and there is no court where he
has not once or twice tried the same scheme!) does not succeed:
Sir Francis Dashwood and Lord Talbot are strongly for him-could
one conceive that he could still find a dupe? Mr. Fox had a
mind to succeed him, but both King and Duke have so earnestly
pressed him to remain secretary at war, that he could not
refuse. The King would not hear of any of the newer court; and
Legge, who of the old was next oars, has managed in the
Prussian business so clumsily, that the King would not bear him
in his closet: but he has got the navy-office, which Lyttelton
would have had, but could not be rechosen at his borough, which
he had stolen by surprise from his old friend and brother Tom
Pitt. The treasury is to be filled up with that toad-eater and
spy to all parties, Harry Vane:(14) there is no enumerating all
the circumstances that make his nomination scandalous and
ridiculous!-but such is our world! General Charles Howard and a
Mr. Saville are named to the red riband.
My friend the Duke of Modena is again coming hither, which
astonishes me, considering how little reason he had to be
satisfied with his first visit; and sure he will have less now!
I believe I told you that King Theodore(15) is here: I am to
drink coffee with him to-morrow at Lady Schaub's. I have
curiosity to see him, though I am not commonly fond of sights,
but content myself with the oil-cloth picture of them that is
hung out, and to which they seldom come up. There are two
black Princes of Anamaboe here, who are in fashion at all the
assemblies, of whom I scarce know any particulars, though their
story(16) is very like Oroonoko's: all the women know it-and
ten times more than belongs to it. Apropos to Indian
historians, half our thoughts are taken up--that is, my Lord
Halifax's are--with colonizing in Nova Scotia: my friend
Colonel Cornwallis is going thither commander-in-chief. The
Methodists will scarce follow him as they did Oglethorpe; since
the period of his expedition,(17) their lot is fallen in a
better land. Methodism is more fashionable than any thing but
brag; the women play very deep at both--as deep, it is much
suspected, as the matrons of Rome did at the mysteries of the
Bona Dea. If gracious Anne was alive, she would make an
admirable defendress of the new faith, and build fifty more
churches for female proselytes.
If I had more paper or time, I could tell you an excellent long
history of my brother Ned'S(18) envy, which was always up at
highwater-mark, but since the publication of my book of
Houghton (one should have thought a very harmless performance),
has overflowed on a thousand ridiculous occasions. Another
great object of his jealousy is my friendship with Mr. Fox: my
brother made him a formal visit at nine o'clock the other
morning, and in a set speech of three quarters of an hour,
begged his pardon for not attending the last day of the Mutiny
bill, which, he said was so particularly brought in by him,
though Mr. Fox assured him that he had no farther hand in it
than from his office. Another instance: when my brother went
to live at Frogmore, Mr. Fox desired him to employ his
tradesmen at Windsor, by way of supporting his interest in that
borough. My brother immediately went to the Duke of St. Albans,
to whom he had never spoke, (nor indeed was his acquaintance with
Mr. Fox much greater), and notified to him, that if seven years
hence his grace should have any contest with Mr. Fox about that
borough, he should certainly espouse the latter. Guess how the
Duke stared at so strange and unnecessary a declaration!
Pigwiggin's Princess has mis-pigged, to the great joy, I
believe, of that family, for you know a child must have eaten.
Adieu!
(11) It was entitled, A bill for amending, explaining, and
reducing into one act, the laws relating to the Navy. "it was,"
says Sir John Barrow, "a most desirable and highly useful
measure. The principal and , indeed, the only novelties
attempted to be introduced, were, first, that of subjecting
half pay officers to courts-martial, which after much
opposition was thrown out; the second was the administration of
an oath of secrecy to the members, which was carried, and
continues to the present time." See Life of Lord Anson, p.
218.--E.
(12) The Hon. Edward Boscawen, third son of Hugh, first
Viscount Falmouth. He was a distinguished naval commander, and
had a large share in the success of Lord Anson's engagement
with the French fleet off Cape Finisterre in 1747. He died in
1761.-D.
(13) The Dukes of Bedford and Newcastle.-D.
(14) Eldest son of Lord Barnard, and afterwards first Earl of
Darlington. he died in 1758.-E.
(15) Theodore, King of Corsica.-D.
(16) Their story is briefly this: A Moorish king, who had
entertained with great hospitality a British captain
trafficking on the coast of Africa, reposed such confidence in
him, as to intrust him with his son, about eighteen years of
age, and another sprightly youth, to be brought to England and
educated in the European manners. The captain received them,
and basely sold them for slaves. He shortly after died; and,
the ship coming to England, the officers related the whole
affair: upon which the government sent to pay their ransom, and
they were brought to England and put under the care of the Earl
of Halifax, then at the head of the board of trade, who had
them clothed and educated in a suitable manner. They were
afterwards received in the higher circles, and introduced to
the King. On the first of February in this year, they appeared
at the Covent-Garden theatre, to see the tragedy of Oroonok;
where they were received with a loud clap of applause, which
they returned with a genteel bow. The tender interview between
Imoinda and Oroonoko so affected the Prince, that he was
obliged to retire at the end of the fourth act. His companion
remained, but wept all the time so bitterly that it affected
the audience more than the play.-E.
(17) General Oglethorpe was the great promoter of the colony of
Georgia. See vol. i.-E.
(18) Sir Edward Walpole, K. B.-D.
19 Letter 3
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, May 3, 1749.
I am come hither for a few days, to repose myself after a
torrent of diversions, and am writing to you in my charming
bow-window with a tranquillity and satisfaction which, I fear,
I am grown old enough to prefer to the hurry of amusements, in
which the whole world has lived for this last week. We have at
last celebrated the peace, and that as much in extremes as we
generally do everything, whether we have reason to be glad or
sorry, pleased or angry. Last Tuesday it was proclaimed: the
King did not go to St. Paul's, but at night the whole town was
illuminated. The next day was what was called "a
jubilee-masquerade in the Venetian manner" at Ranelagh: it had
nothing Venetian in it, but was by far the best understood and
the prettiest spectacle I ever saw: nothing in a fairy tale
ever surpassed it. One of the proprietors, who is a German, and
belongs to court, had got my Lady Yarmouth to persuade the King
to order it. It began at three o'clock, and, about five,
people of fashion began to go. When you entered, you found the
whole garden filled with masks and spread with tents, which
remained all night very commodely. In one quarter was a
May-pole dressed with garlands, and people dancing round it to
a tabor and pipe and rustic music, all masqued,'as were all the
various bands of music that were disposed in different parts of
the garden; some like huntsmen with French-horns, some like
peasants, with a troop of harlequins and scaramouches in the
little open temple on the mount. On the canal was a sort of
gondola, adorned with flags and streamers, and filled with
music, rowing about. All round the outside of the amphitheatre
were shops, filled with Dresden china, Japan, etc. and all the
shop-keepers in mask. The amphitheatre was illuminated; and in
the middle was a circular bower, composed of all kinds of firs
in tubs from twenty to thirty feet high: under them
orange-trees, with small lamps in each orange, and below them
all sorts of the finest auriculas in pots; and festoons of
natural flowers hanging from tree to tree. Between the arches
too were firs, and smaller ones in the balconies above. There
were booths for tea and wine, gaming-tables and dancing, and
about two thousand persons. In short, it pleased me more than
any thing I ever saw. It is to be once more, and probably
finer as to dresses, as there has since been a
subscription-masquerade, and people will go in their rich habits.
The next day were the fire-works, which by no means answered the
expense, the length of preparation, and the expectation that
had been raised; indeed, for a week before, the town was like a
country fair, the streets filled from morning to night,
scaffolds building wherever you could or could not see, and
coaches arriving from every corner of the kingdom. This hurry
and lively scene, with the sight of the immense crowd in the
Park and on every house, the guards, and the machine itself,
which was very beautiful, was all that was worth seeing. The
rockets, and whatever was thrown up into the air, succeeded
mighty well; but the wheels, and all that was to compose the
principal part, were pitiful and ill-conducted, with no changes
of coloured fires and shapes: the illumination was mean, and
lighted so slowly that scarce any body had patience to wait the
finishing; and then, -what contributed to the awkwardness of
the whole, was the right pavilion catching fire, and being
burnt down in the middle of the show. The King, the Duke, and
Princess Emily saw it from the library,(19) with their courts:
the Prince and Princess, with their children, from Lady
Middlesex's; no place being provided for them, nor any
invitation given to the library. The lords and Commons had
galleries built for them and the chief citizens along the rails
of the mall: the lords had four tickets a-piece, and each
Commoner, at first, but two, till the Speaker bounced and
obtained a third. Very little mischief was done, and but two
persons killed: at Paris, there were forty killed and near
three hundred wounded, by a dispute between the French and
Italians in the management, who, quarrelling for precedence in
lighting the fires, both lighted at once and blew up the whole.
Our mob was extremely tranquil, and very unlike those I
remember in my father's time, when it was a measure in the
Opposition to work up every thing to mischief, the excise and
the French players, the convention and the gin-act. We are as
much now in the opposite extreme, and in general so pleased
with the peace, that I could not help being struck with a
passage I read lately in Pasquier an old French author, who
says, "that in the time of Francis 1. the French used to call
their creditors 'Des Anglois,' from the facility with which the
English gave credit to them in all treaties, though they had
broken so many." On Saturday we had a serenata at the
Opera-house, called Peace in Europe, but it was a wretched
performance. On Monday there was a subscription-masquerade,
much fuller than that of last year, but not so agreeable or so
various in dresses. The King was well disguised in an
old-fashioned English habit, and much pleased with somebody who
desired him to hold their cup as they were drinking tea. The
Duke had a dress of the same kind, but was so immensely
corpulent that he looked like Cacofogo, the drunken captain, in
Rule a Wife and Have a Wife. The Duchess of Richmond was a
lady mayoress in the time of James I.; and Lord Delawarr,(20)
Queen Elizabeth's porter, from a picture in the guard-chamber at
Kensington; they were admirable masks. Lady Rochford, Miss
Evelyn, Miss Bishop, Lady Stafford,(21) and
Mrs. Pitt,(22) were in vast beauty; particularly the last, who
had a red veil, which made her look gloriously handsome. I
forgot Lady Kildare. Mr. Conway was the Duke in Don Quixote,
and the finest figure I ever saw. Miss Chudleigh(23) was
Iphigenia, but so naked that you would have taken her for
Andromeda; and Lady Betty Smithson had such a pyramid of
baubles upon her head, that she was exactly the Princess of
Babylon in Grammont.
You will conclude that, after all these diversions, people
begin to think of going out of town--no such matter: the
Parliament continues sitting, and will till the middle Of June;
Lord Egmont told us we should sit till Michaelmas. There are
many private bills, no public ones of any fame. We were to
have had some chastisement for Oxford, where, besides the late
riots, the famous Dr. King,(24) the Pretender's great agent,
made a most violent speech at the opening of the Ratcliffe
library. The ministry denounced judgment, but, in their old
style, have grown frightened, and dropped it. However, this
menace gave occasion to a meeting and union between the
Prince's party and the Jacobites, which Lord Egmont has been
labouring all the winter. They met at the St. Alban's tavern,
near Pall-mall, last Monday morning, an hundred and twelve
Lords and Commoners. The Duke of Beaufort(25) opened the
assembly with a panegyric on the stand that had been made this
winter against so corrupt an administration, and hoped it would
continue, and desired harmony. Lord Egmont seconded this
strongly, and begged they would come up to Parliament early
next winter. Lord Oxford(26) spoke next; and then Potter, with
great humour, and to the great Abashment of the Jacobites, said
he was very glad to see this union, and from thence hoped, that
if another attack like the last rebellion should be made on the
Royal Family, they would all stand by them. No reply was made
to this. Then Sir Watkyn Williams spoke, Sir Francis Dashwood,
and Tom Pitt,(27) and the meeting broke up. I don't know what
his coalition may produce; it will require time with no better
heads than compose it at present, though great Mr. Doddington
had carried to the conference the assistance of his. In France a
very favourable event has happened for us, the disgrace of
Maurepas,(28) one of our bitterest enemies, and the promoter of
their marine. Just at the beginning of the war, in a very
critical period, he had obtained a very large sum for that
service, but which one of the other factions, lest he should gain
glory and credit by it, got to be Suddenly given away to the King
of Prussia.
Sir Charles Williams is appointed envoy to this last King: here
is an epigram which he has just sent over on Lord Egmont's
opposition to the Mutiny-bill;
"Why has lord Egmont 'gainst this bill
So much declamatory skill
So tediously exerted?
The reason's plain: but t'other day
He mutinied himself for pay,
And he has twice descried."
I must tell you a bon-mot that was made the other night at the
serenata of "Peace in Europe" by Wall,(29) who is Much in
fashion, and a kind of Gondomar. Grossatesta, the Modenese
minister, a very low fellow, with all the jackpuddinghood of an
Italian, asked, "Mais qui est ce qui repres`ente mon maitre>"
Wall replied, "Mais, mon Die, l'abb`e, ne scavez vous pas que
ce n'est pas un op`era boufon!" And here is another bon-mot of
my Lady Townshend: We were talking of the Methodists: somebody
said, "Nay, Madam, is it true that Whitfield has recanted?"
"No, Sir, he has only canted."
If you ever think of returning to England, as I hope it will be
long first, you must prepare yourself with Methodism. I really
believe that by that time it will be necessary; this sect
increases as fast as almost ever any religious nonsense did.
Lady Fanny Shirley has chosen this way of bestowing the dregs
of her beauty; and Mr. Lyttelton is very near making the same
sacrifice of the dregs of all those various characters that he
has worn. The Methodists love your big sinners as proper
subjects to work upon--and indeed they have a plentiful
harvest--I think what you call flagrancy was never more in
fashion. Drinking is at the highest wine-mark; and gaming
joined with it so violent, that at the last Newmarket meeting,
in the rapidity of both, a bank-bill was thrown down, and
nobody immediately claiming it, they agreed to give it to a man
that was standing by.
I must tell you of Stosch's letter, which he had the
impertinence to give you without telling the contents. It was
to solicit the arrears of his pension, which I beg you will
Tell him I have no manner of interest to procure; and to tell
me of a Galla Placidia, a gold medal lately found. It is not for
myself, but I wish you would ask him the price for a friend of
mine who would like to buy it. Adieu! my dear child; I have been
long in arrears to you, but I trust you will take this huge
letter as an acquittal. You see my villa makes me a good
correspondent; how happy I should be to show it you, if I could,
with no mixture of disagreeable circumstances to you. I have
made a vast plantation! Lord Leicester told me the other day that
he heard I would not buy some old china, because I was laying out
all my money in trees; "Yes," said I, my Lord, I used to love
blue trees, but Now I like green ones."
(19) Probably the old brick building near the bottom of the
Green Park, which was called the Queen's Library," and which
was pulled down by the late Duke of York when he built his new
house in the Stable-yard, St. James's.-D.
(20) John West, seventh Lord Delawarr, created Earl Delawarr,
in 1761-D.
(21) Henrietta Cantillon, wife of Matthias Howard, third Earl
of Stafford.-D.
(22) Penelope Atkyns a celebrated beauty, wife of George Pitt,
Esq. of Strathfieldsaye, in Hants, created in 1776 Lord
Rivers.-D.
(23) Afterwards Duchess of Kingston.-D.
(24) last conspicuous Jacobite at Oxford. He was public orator
of that University and principal of St. Mary Hall.-D.
(25) Lord Noel Somerset,- who, in 1746 succeeded his brother in
the dukedom.
(26) Edward Harley, of Eywood, in the county of Hereford, to
whom, pursuant to the limitations of the patent, the earldoms
of Oxford and Mortimer descended, upon the death, without male
issue, of the Lord Treasurer's only son, Edward, the second
Earl. Lord Oxford was of the Jacobite party. He died in
1755.--D.
(27) Thomas Pitt, Esq. of Boconnock, in Cornwall, warden of the
Stannaries. He married the sister of George, Lord Lyttelton,
and was the father of the first Lord Camelford.-D.
(28) Phelypeaux, Count de Maurepas, son of the Chancellor de
Pontchartrain. He was disgraced in consequence of some quarrel
with the King's mistress. He returned to office, unhappily for
France, in the commencement of the reign of louis the
Sixteenth.-D.
(29) General Wall, the Spanish ambassador. Gondomar was the
able Spanish ambassador in England in the reign of james the
First.-D.
23 Letter 4
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, May 17, 1749.
We have not yet done diverting ourselves: the night before last
the Duke of Richmond gave a firework; a codicil to the peace.
He bought the rockets and wheels that remained in the pavilion
which miscarried, and took the pretence of the Duke of Modena
being here to give a charming entertainment. The garden(30)
lies with a slope down to the Thames, on which were lighters,
from whence were thrown up, after a concert of water-music, a
great number of rockets. Then from boats on every side were
discharged water-rockets and fires of that kind; and then the
wheels Which were ranged along the rails of the terrace were
played off; and the whole concluded with the illumination of a
pavilion on the top of the slope, of two pyramids on each side,
and of the whole length of the balustrade to the water. You
can't conceive a prettier sight; the garden filled with every
body of fashion, the Duke, the Duke of Modena, and the two
black Princes. The King and Princess Emily were in their barge
under the terrace; the river was covered with boats, and the
shores and adjacent houses with crowds. The Duke of Modena
played afterwards at brag, and there was a fine supper for him
and the foreigners, of whom there are numbers here; it is grown
as much the fashion to travel hither as to France or Italy.
Last week there was a vast assembly and music at Bedford-house
for this Modenese; and to-day he is set out to receive his
doctor's degree at the two Universities. His appearance is
rather better than it used to be, for, instead of wearing his
wig down to his nose to hide the humour in his face, he has
taken to paint his forehead white, which, however, with the
large quantity of red that he always wears on the rest of his
face, makes him ridiculous enough. I cannot say his manner is
more polished; Princess Emily asked him if he did not find the
Duke much fatter than when he was here before? He replied, "En
verit`e il n'est pas si effroiable qu'on m'avoit dit." She
commended his diamonds; he said, "Les v`otres sont bien
petits." As I had been graciously received at his court, I
went into his box the first night at the Opera: the first thing
he did was to fall asleep; but as I did not choose to sit waiting
his reveil in the face of the whole theatre, I waked him, and
would discourse him: but here I was very unlucky, for of the only
two persons I could recollect at his court to inquire after, one
has been dead these four years, and the other, he could not
remember any such man. However, Sabbatini, his secretary of
state, flattered me extremely: told me he found me beaucoup
mieux, and that I was grown very fat-I fear, I fear it was
flattery! Eight years don't improve one,-and for my corpulence,
if I am grown fat, what must I have been in my Modenese days!
I told you we were to have another jubilee masquerade: there
was one by the King's command for Miss Chudleigh, tire maid of
honour, with whom our gracious monarch has a mind to believe
himself in love,--so much in love, that at one of the booths he
gave her a fairing for her watch, which cost him
five-and-thirty guineas,--actually disbursed out of his privy
purse, and not charged on the civil list. Whatever you may
think of it, this is a more magnificent present than the
cabinet which the late King of Poland sent to the fair Countess
Konismark, replete with all kinds of baubles and ornaments, and
ten thousand ducats in one of the drawers. I hope some future
Hollinshed or Stowe will acquaint posterity "that
five-and-thirty guineas were an immense sum in those days!"
You are going to see one of our court-beauties in Italy, my
Lady Rochford:(31) they are setting Out on their embassy to
Turin. She is large, but very handsome, with great delicacy
and address. All the Royals have been in love with her; but
the Duke was so in all the forms, till she was a little too
much pleased with her conquest of his brother-in-law the Prince
of Hesse. You will not find much in the correspondence of her
husband: his person is good, and he will figure well enough as
an ambassador; better as a husband where cicisb`es don't expect
to be molested. The Duke is not likely to be so happy with his
new passion, Mrs. Pitt,(32) who, besides being in love with her
husband, whom you remember (,lady Mary Wortley's George Pitt),
is going to Italy with him, I think you will find her one of
the most glorious beauties you ever saw. You are to have
another pair of our beauties, the Princess Borghese's, Mr
Greville(33) and his wife, who was the pretty Fanny M'Cartney.
Now I am talking scandal to you, and court-scandal, I must tell
you that Lord Conway's sister, Miss Jenny, is dead suddenly
with eating lemonade at the last subscription masquerade.,(34)
It is not quite unlucky for her: she had outlived the Prince's
love and her own face, and nothing remained but her love and her
person, which was exceedingly bad.
The graver part of the world, who have not been given up to
rockets and masquing, are amused with a book of Lord
Bolinbroke's, just published, but written long ago. It is
composed of three letters, the first to Lord Cornbury on the
Spirit of Patriotism; and two others to Mr. lyttelton, (but
with neither of their names,) on the Idea of a patriot King,
and the State of Parties on the late King's accession. Mr.
Lyttelton had sent him word, that he begged nothing might be
inscribed to him that was to reflect on Lord Orford, for that
he was now leagued with all Lord Orford's friends: a message as
abandoned as the book itself: but indeed there is no describing
the impudence with which that set of people unsay what they
have been saying all their lives,-I beg their pardons, I mean
the honesty with which they recant! Pitt told me coolly, that
he had read this book formerly, when he admired Lord Bolinbroke
more than he does now. The book by no means answered my
expectation: the style, which is his fort, is very fine: the
deduction and impossibility of drawing a consequence from what
he is saying, as bad and obscure as in his famous Dissertation
on Parties: Von must know the man, to guess his meaning. Not
to mention the absurdity and impracticability of this kind of
system, there is a long speculative dissertation on the origin
of government, and even that greatly stolen from other writers,
and that all on a sudden dropped, while he hurries into his own
times, and then preaches (he of all men!) on the duty of
preserving decency! The last treatise would not impose upon an
historian of five years old: he tells Mr. Lyttelton, that he
may take it from him, that there was no settled scheme at the
end of the Queen's reign to introduce the Pretender; and he
gives this excellent reason: because, if there had been, he
must have known it; and another reason as ridiculous, that no
traces of such a scheme have since come to light. What, no
traces in all cases of himself, Atterbury, the Duke of Ormond,
Sir William Windham, and others! and is it not known that the
moment the queen was expired, Atterbury proposed to go in his
lawn sleeves and proclaim the Pretender at Charing-cross, but
Bolinbroke's heart failing him, Atterbury swore, "There was the
best cause in Europe lost for want of spirit!" He imputes
Jacobitism singly to Lord Oxford, whom he exceedingly abuses;
and who, so far from being suspected, was thought to have
fallen into disgrace with that faction for refusing to concur
with them. On my father he is much less severe than I
expected; and in general, so obliquely, that hereafter he will
not be perceived to aim at him, though at this time one knows
so much what was at his heart, that it directs one to his
meaning.
But there is a preface to this famous book, which makes much
more noise than the work itself. It seems, Lord Bolinbroke had
originally trusted Pope with the copy, to have half-a-dozen
printed for particular friends. Pope, who loved money
infinitely beyond any friend, got fifteen hundred Copies(35)
printed privately, intending to outlive Bolingbroke and make
great advantage of them; and not only did this, but altered the
copy at his Pleasure, and even made different alterations in
different copies. Where Lord Bolingbroke had strongly flattered
their common friend lyttelton, Pope suppressed the panegyric:
where, in compliment to Pope, he had softened the satire on
Pope's great friend, Lord Oxford, Pope reinstated the abuse. The
first part of this transaction is recorded in the preface; the
two latter facts are reported by Lord Chesterfield and Lyttelton,
the latter of whom went to Bolingbroke to ask how he had
forfeited his good opinion. In short, it is comfortable to us
people of moderate virtue to hear these demigods, and patriots,
and philosophers, inform the world of each other's villanies.(36)
What seems to make Lord Bolinbroke most angry, and I suppose
does, is Pope's having presumed to correct his work. As to his
printing so many copies, it certainly was a compliment, and the
more profit (which however could not be immense) he expected to
make, the greater opinion he must have conceived of the merit of
the work: if one had a mind to defend Pope, should not one
ask,(37) if any body ever blamed Virgil's executors for not
burning the AEneid, as he ordered them? Warburton, I fear, does
design to defend Pope: and my uncle Horace to answer the book;
his style, which is the worst in the world, must be curious, in
opposition to the other. But here comes full as bad a part of
the story as any: Lord Bolinbroke, to buy himself out of the
abuse in the Duke of Marlborough's life, or to buy himself into
the supervisal of it, gave those letters to Mallet, who is
writing this life for a legacy in the old Duchess's will, (and
which, with much humour, she gave, desiring it might not be
written in verse,) and Mallet sold them to the bookseller for a
hundred and fifty pounds. Mallet had many obligations to Pope,
no disobligations to him, and was one of his grossest flatterers;
witness the sonnet on his supposed death, printed in the notes
to the Dunciad. I was this morning told an anecdote from the
Dorset family that is no bad collateral evidence of the
Jacobitism Of the Queen'S four last years. They wanted to get
Dover Castle into their hands, and sent down Prior to the present
Duke of Dorset, who loved him, and probably was his brother,(38)
to persuade him to give it up. He sent Prior back with great
an(-,er, and in three weeks was turned out of the government
himself but it is idle to produce proofs; as idle as to deny the
scheme.
I have just been with your brother Gal. who has been laid up
these two days with the gout in his ankle; an absolute
professed gout in all the forms, and with much pain. Mr. Chute
is out of town; when he returns, I shall set him upon your
brother to reduce him to abstinence and health. Adieu!
(30 At Whitehall.
(31) Daughter of Edward Young' Esq. and wife of William, Earl
of Rochford. She had been maid of honour to the Princess of
Wales.
(32) Penelope, sister of Sir Richard Atkyns.
(33) Fulke Greville, Esq. son of the Hon. Algernon Greville,
second son of Fulke, fifth Lord Brooke. His wife was the
authoress of the pretty poem entitled "an Ode to
Indifference."-D.
(34) This event was commemorated in the following doggrel
lines:--
"Poor Jenny Conway
She drank lemonade,
At a masquerade,
So now she's dead and gone away."-D.
(35) Lord Bolingbroke discovered what Pope had done during his
lifetime, and never forgave him for it. He-obliged him to give
up the copies, and they were burned on the terrace of Lord
Bolingbroke's house at Battersea, in the presence of Lord B.
and Pope.-D.
(36) In reference to this publication, Lord Bolingbroke
himself, in a letter to Lord Marchmont, written on the 7th of
June, says, "The book you mention has brought no trouble upon
me, though it has given occasion to many libels upon me. They
are of the lowest form, and seem to be held in the contempt
they deserve. There I shall leave them, nor suffer a nest of
hornets to disturb the quiet of my retreat. If these letters
of mine come to your hands, your lordship will find that I have
left out all that was said of our friend Lord Lyttelton in one
of them. He desired that it might be so; and I had at once the
double mortification of concealing the good I had said of one
friend, and of revealing the turpitude of another. I hope you
will never have the same treatment that I have met with;
neither will you. I am single in my circumstances--a species
apart in the political society; and they, who dare to attack no
one else, may attack me. Chesterfield says, I have made a
coalition of Wig, Tory, Trimmer, and Jacobite against myself.
Be it so. I have Truth, that is stronger than all of them, on
my side; and, in her company, and avowed by her, I have more
satisfaction than their applause and their favour could give
me." Marchmont Papers.-E.
(37) This thought was borrowed by Mr. Spence, in a pamphlet
published on this occasion in defence of Pope.
(38) Burnet relates that the Earl of Dorset, celebrated for
patronage of Genius, found Prior by chance reading Horace, and
was so well pleased with his proficiency, that he undertook the
care and cost of academical education.
27 Letter 5
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, May 18, 1749,.
Dear George,
Whatever you hear of the Richmond fireworks, that is short of
the prettiest entertainment in the world, don't believe it - I
really never passed a more agreeable evening. Every thing
succeeded; all the wheels played in time; Frederick was
fortunate, and all the world in good humour. Then for
royalty--Mr. Anstis himself would have been glutted; there were
all the Fitzes upon earth, the whole court of St. Germains, the
Duke,(39) the Duke of Modena, and two Anamaboes. The King, and
Princess Emily bestowed themselves upon the mob on the river
and as soon as they were gone, the Duke had the music into the
garden, and himself, with my Lady Lincoln, Mrs. Pitt, Peggy
Banks, and Lord Holderness, entertained the good subjects with
singing God save the King to them over the rails of the
terrace. The Duke of Modena supped there, and the Duke was
asked, but he answered, it was impossible; in short, he could
not adjust his dignity to a mortal banquet. There was an
admirable scene: Lady Burlington brought the Violette, and the
Richmonds had asked Garrick who stood ogling and sighing the
whole time, while my Lady kept a most fierce look-out.
Sabbatini, one of the Duke of Modena's court, was asking me who
all the people were? and who is that? "C'est miladi Hartington,
la belle fille du Duc de Devonshire." "Et qui est cette autre
dame!" It was a distressing question; after a little
hesitation, I replied, "Mais c'est Mademoiselle Violette?" "Et
comment Mademoiselle Violette! j'ai connu une Mademoiselle
Violette, par exemple."(40) I begged him to look at Miss
Bishop.
In the middle of all these principalities and powers was the
Duchess of Queensbury, in her forlorn trim, a white apron and a
white hood, and would make the Duke swallow all her undress.
T'other day she drove post to Lady Sophia Thomas, at
Parsons-green, and told her that she was come to tell her
something of importance. " What is it!" "Why take a couple of
beef-steaks, clap them together as if they were for a dumpling,
and eat them with pepper and salt; it is the best thing you
ever tasted: I could not help coming to tell you this:" and
away she drove back to town. Don't a course of folly for forty
years make one very sick?
The weather is SO hot, and the roads so dusty, that I can't get
to Strawberry; but I shall begin negotiating with you now about
your coming. You must not expect to find it in beauty. I hope
to get my bill finished in ten days; I have scrambled it
through the lords; but altogether, with the many difficulties
and plagues, I am a good deal out of humour; my purchases
hitch, and new proprietors start out of the ground, like the
crop of soldiers in the Metamorphosis. I expect but an
unpleasant summer; my indolence and inattention are not made to
wade through leases and deeds. Mrs. Chenevix brought me one
yesterday to sign, and her sister Bertrand, the toy-woman of
Bath, for a witness. I showed them my cabinet of enamels
instead of treating them with white wine. The Bertrand said,
"Sir, I hope you don't trust all sorts of ladies with this
cabinet!" What an entertaining assumption of dignity! I must
tell you an anecdote that I found t'other day in an old French
author, which is a great drawback on beaux sentiments and
romantic ideas. Pasquier, in his "Recherches de la France," is
giving an account of the Queen of Scots' execution; he says,
the night before, knowing her body must be stripped for her
shroud, she would have her feet washed, because she used
ointment to one of them which was sore. I believe I have told
you, that in a very old trial of her, which I bought from Lord
Oxford's collection, it is said that she was a large lame
woman. Take sentiments out of their pantoufles, and reduce
them to the infirmities of mortality, what a falling off there
is! I could not help laughing in myself t'other day, as I went
through Holborn in a very hot day, at the dignity of human
nature; all those foul old-clothes women panting without
handkerchiefs, and mopping themselves all the way down within
their loose jumps. Rigby gave me a strong picture of human
nature; he and Peter Bathurst t'other night carried a servant
of the latter's, who had attempted to shoot him, before
Fielding; who, to all his other vocations, has, by the grace of
Mr. Lyttelton, added that of Middlesex justice. He sent them
word he was at supper, that they must come next morning. They
did not understand that freedom, and ran up, where they found
him banqueting with a blind man,(41) a whore, and three on some
cold mutton and a bone of ham, both in One dish, and the
dirtiest cloth. He never stirred nor asked them to sit.
Rigby, who had seen him so often come to beg a guinea of Sir C.
Williams, and Bathurst, at whose father's he had lived for
victual,,, understood that dignity as little, and pulled
themselves chairs; on which he civilized.(42)
Millar the bookseller has done generously by him: finding Tom
Jones, for which he had given him six hundred pounds, sell So
greatly, he has since given him another hundred.(43) Now I
talk to you of authors, Lord Cobham's West(44) has published
his translation of Pindar; the poetry is very stiff, but
prefixed to it there is a very entertaining account of the
Olympic games, and that preceded by an affected inscription to
Pitt and Lyttelton. The latter has declared his future match
with Miss Rich. George Grenville has been married these two
days to Miss Windham. Your friend Lord North is, I suppose you
know, on the brink with the countess of Rockingham;(45) and I
think your cousin Rice is much inclined to double the family
alliance with her sister Furnese. It went on very currently
for two or three days, but last night at Vauxhall his
minionette face seemed to be sent to languish with Lord R.
Berties's.
Was not you sorry for poor Cucumber? I do assure you I was; it
was shocking to be hurried away so suddenly, and in so much
torment. You have heard I suppose of Lord Harry Beauclerc's
resignation, on his not being able to obtain a respite till
November, though the lowest officer in his regiment has got
much longer leave. It is incredible how Nolkejumskoi has
persecuted this poor man for these four years, since he could
not be persuaded to alter his vote at a court-martial for the
acquittal of a man whom the Duke would have condemned. Lord
Ossulston, too, has resigned his commission.
I must tell you a good story of Charles Townshend: you know his
political propensity and importance; his brother George was at
supper at the King's Arms with some more young men. The
conversation somehow or other rambled into politics, and it was
started that the national debt was a benefit. "I am sure it is
not," said Mr. Townshend; I can't tell why, but my brother
Charles can, and I will send to him for arguments." Charles
was at supper at another tavern, but so much the dupe of this
message, that he literally called for ink and paper, wrote four
long sides of arguments, and sent word that when his company
broke up, he would come and give them more, which he did at one
o'clock in the morning. I don't think you will laugh much less
at what happened to me: I wanted a print out of a booth, which
I did not care to buy at Osborn's shop: the next day he sent me
the print, and begged that when I had any thing to publish, I
would employ him.
I will now tell you, and finish this long letter, how I shocked
Mr. Mackenzie inadvertently at Vauxhall: we had supped there a
great party, and coming out, Mrs. More, who waits at the gate,
said, "Gentlemen and ladies, you will walk in and hear the
surprising alteration of voice?" I forgetting Mackenzie's
connexions, and that he was formerly of the band, replied, "No,
I have seen patriots enough."
I intend this letter shall last you till you come to Strawberry
Hill. one might have rolled it out into half-a-dozen. My best
compliments to your sisters.
(39) The Duke of Cumberland.
(40) Garrick's; marriage with Mademoiselle Eva Maria Violette
took place four days after the date of this letter.-E.
(41) Sir Walter Scott suggests, that this blind man was
probably Fielding's brother.-E.
(42) "Allen, the friend of Pope," says Sir Walter Scott, "was
also one of his benefactors, but unnamed at his own desire;
thus confirming the truth of the poet's beautiful couplet,
'Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame,
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.'
It is said that this munificent and modest patron made Fielding
a present of two hundred pounds at one time, and that even
before he was personally acquainted with him."-E.
(43) "This," observes Sir Walter Scott, in his biographical
notice of Fielding, " is a humiliating anecdote, even after we
have made allowance for the aristocratic exaggeration of
Walpole; yet it is consoling to observe that Fielding's
principles remained unshaken, though the circumstances
attending his official situation tended to increase the
careless disrespectability of his private habits. His own
account of his conduct respecting the dues of the office on
which he depended for subsistence, has never been denied or
doubted: 'I confess,' says he, 'that my private affairs at the
beginning of the winter had but a gloomy aspect; for I had not
plundered the public or the poor of those sums which they who
are always ready to plunder both as much as they can, have been
pleased to suspect me of taking: on the contrary, by composing,
instead of inflaming, the quarrels of porters and beggars, and
by refusing to take a shilling from a man who most undoubtedly
would not have had another left, I had reduced an income of
about five hundred a year, of the dirtiest money upon earth, to
a little more than three hundred; a considerable portion of
which remained with my clerk."'-E.
(44) West's mother was sister to Sir Richard Temple, afterwards
Lord Cobham. Of his translation of Pindar, Dr. Johnson states,
that he found his expectations surpassed, both by its elegance
and its exactness. For his "Observations on the Resurrection,"
the University of Oxford, in March 1748, created him a Doctor
of Laws by diploma. At his residence at Wickham, where he was
often visited by Lyttelton and Pitt, there is a walk designed
by the latter; while the former received at this place that
conviction which produced his "Dissertation on St. Paul."-E.
(45) Daughter of Sir Robert Furnese, and widow of Lewis, Earl
of Rockingham.
30 Letter 6
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, June 4, 1749.
As summery as June and Strawberry Hill may sound, I assure you
I am writing to you by the fire-side: English weather will give
vent to its temper, and whenever it is out of humour it will
blow east and north and all kinds of cold. Your brothers Ned
and Gal. dined with me to-day, and I carried the latter back to
Richmond: as I passed over the green, I saw Lord Bath, Lord
Lonsdale,(46) and half-a-dozen more of the White's club
sauntering at the door of a house which they have taken there,
and come to every Saturday and Sunday to play at whist. You
will naturally ask why they can't play at whist in London on
those two days as well as on the other five; indeed I can't
tell you, except that it is so established a fashion to go out
of town at the end of the week, that people do go, though it be
only into another town. It made me smile to see Lord Bath
sitting there, like a citizen that has left off trade.
Your brother Ned has not seen Strawberry Hill since my great
improvements; he was astonished: it is pretty: you never saw so
tranquil a scene, without the least air of melancholy: I should
hate it, if it was dashed with that. I forgot to ask Gal. what
is become of the books of Houghton which I gave him six months
ago for you and Dr. Cocchi. You perceive I have got your
letter of May 23rd, and with it Prince Craon's simple epistle
to his daughter:(47) I have no mind to deliver it: it would be
a proper recommendation of a staring boy on his travels, and is
consequently very suitable to my colleague, Master St. Leger;
but one hates to be coupled with a romping grayhound puppy,
"qui est moins prudent que Monsieur Valpol!" I did not want to
be introduced to Madame de Mirepoix's assemblies, but to be
acquainted with her, as I like her family: I concluded, simple
as he is, that an old Frenchman knew how to make these
distinctions. By thrusting St. Leger into the letter with me,
and talking of my prudence, I shall not wonder if she takes me
for his bear-leader, his travelling governor!
Mr. Chute, who went from hence this morning, and is always
thinking of blazoning your pedigree(48) in the noblest colours,
has turned over all my library, till he has tapped a new and
very great family for you: in short, by your mother it is very
clear that you are descended from Hubert de Burgh, Grand
Justiciary to Richard the Second: indeed I think he was hanged;
but that is a misfortune that ill attend very illustrious
genealogies; it is as common to them as to the pedigrees about
Paddington and Blacieheath. I have had at least a dozen
great-great-grandfathers that came to untimely ends. All your
virtuosos in heraldry are content to know that they had
ancestors who lived five hundred years ago, no matter how they
died. A match with a low woman corrupts a stream of blood as
long as the Danube, tyranny, villainy, and executions are mere
fleabites, and leave no stain. The good Lord of Bath, whom I
saw on Richmond-green this evening, did intend, I believe, to
ennoble my genealogy with another execution: how low is he sunk
now from those views! and how entertaining to have lived to see
all those virtuous patriots proclaiming their mutual
iniquities! Your friend Mr. Doddington, it seems, is so reduced
as to be relapsing into virtue. In my last I told you some
curious anecdotes of another part of the band, of Pope and
Bolingbroke. The friends of the former have published twenty
pamphlets against the latter; I say against the latter, for, as
there is no defending Pope, they are reduced to satirize
Bolingbroke. One of them tells him how little he would be
known himself from his own writings, if he were not
immortalized in Pope's; and still more justly, that if be
destroys Pope's moral character, what will become of his own,
which has been retrieved and sanctified by the embalming art of
his friend? However, there are still new discoveries made
every day of Pope's dirty selfishness. Not content with the
great profits which he proposed to make of the work in
question, he could not bear that the interest of his money
should be lost till Bolingbroke's death; and therefore told him
that it would cost very near as much to have the press set for
half-a-dozen copies as it would for a complete edition, and by
this means made Lord Bolingbroke pay very near the whole
expense of the fifteen hundred. Another story I have been told
on this occasion, was of a gentleman who, making a visit to
Bishop Atterbury in France, thought to make his court by
commending Pope. The Bishop replied not: the gentleman doubled
the dose - at last the Bishop shook his head, and said, "Mens
curva in corpore curvo!" The world will now think justly of
these men: that Pope was the greatest poet, but not the most
disinterested man in the world; and that Bolingbroke had not
all those virtues and not all those talents which the other so
proclaimed; and that be did not even deserve the friendship
which lent him so much merit; and for the mere loan of which he
dissembled attachment to Pope, to whom in his heart he was as
perfidious and as false as he has been to the rest of the
world.
The Duke of Devonshire has at last resigned, for the
unaccountable and unenvied pleasure of shutting himself up at
Chatsworth with his ugly mad Duchess;(49) the more
extraordinary sacrifice, as he turned her head, rather than
give up a favourite match for his son. She has consented to
live with him there, and has even been with him in town for a
few days, but did not see either her son or Lady Harrington.
On his resignation he asked and obtained an English barony for
Lord Besborough, whose son Lord Duncannon, you know, married
the Duke's eldest daughter. I believe this is a great
disappointment to my uncle, who hoped he would ask the peerage
for him or Pigwiggin. The Duke of Marlborough succeeds as lord
steward. Adieu!
(46) Henry Lowther, third Viscount Lonsdale, of the first
creation. He was the second son of John, the first Viscount,
and succeeded his elder brother Richard in the title in 1713.
He was a lord of the bedchamber, and at one period of his life
was privy seal.-D.
(47) Madame de Mirepoix, French ambassadress in England, to
whom her father, Prince Craon, had written a letter of
introduction for Horace Walpole.- D.
(48) Count Richcourt, and some Florentines, his creatures, had
been very impertinent about Mr. Mann's family, which was very
good, and which made it necessary to have his pedigree drawn
out, and sent over to Florence.
(49) Coxe, in his Memoirs of Lord Walpole, vol ii. p. 264, says
that the Duke of Devonshire resigned, because be was disgusted
with the feuds in the cabinet, and perplexed with the jealous
disposition of Newcastle and the desponding spirit of Pelham.
He adds, " that the Duke was a man of sound judgment and
unbiased integrity, and that Sir Robert Walpole used to
declare, that, on a subject which required mature deliberation,
he would prefer his sentiments to those of any other person in
the kingdom."-E.
32 Letter 7
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, June 25, 1749.
Don't flatter yourself with your approaching year of jubilee;
its pomps and vanities will be nothing to the shows and
triumphs we have had, and are having. I talk like an
Englishman: here you know we imagine that a jubilee is a season
of pageants, not of devotion but our Sabbath has really been
all tilt and tournament. There have been, I think, no less
than eight masquerades, the fire-works, and a public act at
Oxford: to-morrow is an installation of six Knights of the Bath,
and in August of as many Garters: Saturday, Sunday,
and Monday next, are the banquets(50) at Cambridge, for the
instalment of the Duke of Newcastle as chancellor. The whole
world goes to it: he has invited, summoned, pressed the entire
body of nobility and gentry from all parts of England. His
cooks have been there these ten days, distilling essences of
every living creature, and massacring and confounding all the
species that Noah and Moses took such pains to preserve and
distinguish. It would be pleasant to see the pedants and
professors searching for etymologies of strange dishes, and
tracing more wonderful transformations than any in the
Metamorphoses. How miserably Horace's unde et quo Catius will
be hacked about in clumsy quotations! I have seen some that
will be very unwilling performers at the creation of this
ridiculous MaMaMOUChi.(51) I have set my heart on their giving
a doctor's degree to the Duchess of Newcastle's favourite--this
favourite is at present neither a lover nor an apothecary, but
a common pig, that she brought from Hanover: I am serious; and
Harry Vane, the new lord of the treasury, is entirely employed,
when he is not -,it the Board, in opening and shutting the door
for it. Tell me, don't you very often throw away my letters in
a passion, and believe that I invent the absurdities I relate!
Were not we as mad when you was in England?
The King, who has never dined out of his own palaces, has just
determined to dine at Claremont to-morrow--all the cooks are at
Cambridge; imagine the distress!
Last Thursday, the Monarch of my last paragraph gave away the
six vacant ribands; one to a Margrave of Anspach, a near
relation of the late Queen; others to the Dukes of leeds(52)
and Bedford, lords Albemarle and Granville: the last, you may
imagine gives some uneasiness. The Duke of Bedford has always
been unwilling to take one, having tied himself up in the days
of his patriotism to forfeit great sums if ever he did. The
King told him one day this winter, that he would give none away
but to him and to Anspach. This distinction struck him: he
could not refuse the honour; but he has endeavoured to waive
it, as one imagines, by a scruple he raised against the oath,
which obliges the knights, whenever they are within two miles
of Windsor, to go and offer. The King would not abolish the
oath, but has given a general dispensation for all breaches of
it, past, present, and to come. Lord Lincoln and Lord
Harrington are very unhappy at not being in the list. The
sixth riband is at last given to Prince George; the ministry
could not prevail for it till within half an hour of the
ceremony; then the Bishop of Salisbury was sent
to notify the gracious intention. The Prince was at Kew, so
the message was delivered to Prince George(53) himself. The
child, with great good sense, desired the Bishop to give his
duty and thanks, and to assure the King that he should always
obey him; but that, as his father was out of town, he could
send no other answer. Was not it clever? The design of not
giving one riband to the Prince's children had made great
noise; there was a Remembrancer(54) on that subject ready for
the press. This is the Craftsman of the present age, and is
generally levelled at the Duke,(55) and filled with very
circumstantial cases of his arbitrary behaviour. It has
absolutely written down Hawly, his favourite general and
executioner, who was to have been upon the staff.
Garrick is married to the famous Violette, first at a
Protestant, and then at a Roman Catholic chapel. The chapter
of this history is a little obscure and uncertain as to the
consent of the protecting Countess,(56) and whether she gives
her a fortune or not.
Adieu! I believe I tell you strange rhapsodies; but you must
consider that our follies are not only very extraordinary, but
are our business and employment; they enter into our politics,
nay, I think They are our politics(57)--and I don't know which
are the simplest. they are Tully's description of poetry,
"haec studia juventutem alunt, senectutem oblectant; pernoctant
nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur:" so if you will that I
write to you, you must be content with a detail of absurdities.
I could tell you of Lord Mountford's(58) making
cricket-matches, and fetching up parsons by express from
different parts of England to play matches on Richmond-green;
of his keeping aide-de-camps to ride to all parts to lay bets
for him at horse-races, and of twenty other peculiarities; but
I fancy you are tired: in short, you, who know me, will
comprehend all best when I tell you that I live in such a scene
of folly as makes me even think myself a creature of common
sense.
(50) Gray, in giving an account of the installation to his
friend Wharton, says, "Every one, while it lasted, was very gay
and very busy in the morning, and very owlish and very tipsy at
night. I make no exceptions, from the Chancellor to Blewcoat.
Mason's Ode was the only entertainment that had any tolerable
elegance, and for my own part, I think it (with some little
abatements) uncommonly well on such an occasion. Works, vol.
iii. p. 67.-E.
(51) See Moli`ere's Bourgeois Gentilhomme; in which the nouveau
riche is persuaded that the Grand Seigneur has made him a
mamamouchi, a knight of an imaginary order, and goes through
the ceremony of a mock installation.-E.
(52) Thomas Osborne, fourth Duke of Leeds.--D.
(53) Afterwards George the Third.-D.
(54) A weekly paper edited by Ralph. It was undertaken a short
time previous to the rebellion, to serve the purposes of Bubb
Doddington; in whose Diary Ralph is frequently mentioned with
especial approbation.--E.
(55) The Duke of Cumberland-D.
(56) Dorothy, Countess of Burlington. The Violette was a
German dancer, first at the Opera and then at the playhouse;
and in such favour at Burlington-house, that the tickets for
her benefits were designed by Kent, and engraved by Vertue. [In
the Gentleman's Magazine, the lady is stated to have brought
Garrick a fortune of ten thousand pounds.)
(57) This was frequently the case while the Duke of Newcastle
and Mr.-Pelham were ministers; it was true, that in the case of
the Violette just mentioned, one night that she had advertised
three dances and danced but two, Lord Bury and some young men
of fashion began a riot, and would have had her sent from
Burlington-House. It being feared that she would be hissed on
her next appearance, and Lord Hartington, the cherished of Mr.
Pelham, being son-in-law of Lady Burlington, the ministry were
in great agitation to secure a good reception for the Violette
from the audience, and the Duke was even desired to order Lord
Bury (one of his lords) not to hiss.
(58) Henry Bromley, first Lord Montfort, so created in 1741.
He died in 1755.-D.
35 Letter 8
To George Montagu, Esq.
Mistley, July 5, 1749.
Dear George,
I have this moment received your letter, and it makes me very
unhappy,. You will think me a brute for not having immediately
told you how glad I should be to see you and your sisters; but
I trust that you will have seen Mrs. Boscawen, by whom I sent
you a message to invite you to Strawberry Hill, when we should
be returned from Roel and Mistley. I own my message had rather
a cross air; but as you have retrieved all your crimes with me
by your letter, I have nothing to do but to make myself as well
with you as you are with me. Indeed I am extremely unlucky, but
I flatter myself that Messrs. Montagus will not drop their kind
intention, as it is not in my power to receive it now: they
will give me infinite pleasure by a visit. I stay there till
Monday se'nnight; will that be too late to see you before your
journey to Roel? You must all promise, at least, to be engaged
to me at my return. If the least impediment happens
afterwards, I shall conclude my brother has got you from me;
you know jealousy is the mark of my family.
Mr. Rigby makes you a thousand compliments, and wishes you
would ever think his Roel worth your seeing: you cannot imagine
how he has improved it! You have always heard me extravagant in
the praises of the situation. he has demolished all his
paternal intrenchments of walls and square gardens, opened
lawns, swelled out a bow-window, erected a portico, planted
groves, stifled ponds, and flounce himself with flowering
shrubs and Kent fences. You may imagine that I have a little
hand in all this. Since I came hither, I have projected a
colonnade to join his mansion to the offices, have been the
death of a tree that intercepted the view of the bridge, for
which, too, I have drawn a white rail, and shall be absolute
travelling Jupiter at Baucis and Philemon's; for I have
persuaded him to transform a cottage into a church, by exalting
a spire upon the end of it, as Talbot has done. By the way, I
have dined at the Vineyard.(59) I dare not trust you with what
I think, but I was a little disappointed. To-morrow we go to
the ruins of the Abbey of St. Osyth; it is the seat of the
Rochfords, but I never chose to go there while they were there.
You will probably hear from Mr. Lyttelton (if in any pause of
love he rests) that I am going to be first minister to the
Prince: in short, I have occasioned great speculation, and
diverted myself with the important mysteries that have been
alembicked out of a trifle. In short, he had seen my AEdes
Walpolianae at Sir Luke Schaub's, and sent by him to desire
one. I sent him one bound quite in coronation robes, and went
last Sunday to thank him for the honour. There were all the
new knights of the garter. After the prince had whispered
through every curl of lord Granville's periwig, he turned to me,
and said such a crowd of civil things that I did not know
what to answer; commended the style and the quotations; said I
had sent him back to his Livy; in short, that there were but
two things he disliked--one, that I had not given it to him of
my own accord, and the other, that I had abused his friend
Andrea del Sarto; and that he insisted, when I came to town
again, I should come and see two very fine ones that he has
lately bought of that master. This drew on a very long
conversation on painting, every word of which I suppose will be
reported at the other court as a plan of opposition for the
winter. Prince George was not there: when he went to receive
the riband, the Prince carried him to the closet door, where
the Duke of Dorset received and carried him. Ayscough,(60) or
Nugent. or some of the geniuses, had taught him a speech; the
child began it', the Prince cried "No, no!" When the boy had a
little recovered his fright, he began again; but the same
tremendous sounds were repeated, and the oration still-born.
I believe that soon I shall have a pleasanter tale to tell you;
it is said my Lady Anson, not content with the profusion of the
absurdities she utters, (by the way, one of her sayings, and
extremely in the style of Mr. Lyttelton's making love, was, as
she sat down to play at brag at the corner of a square table:
Lady Fitzwalter said she was sorry she had not better room; "O!
Madam," said my Lady Anson, "I can sit like a nightingale, with
my breast against a thorn;") in short, that, not content with
so much wit, she proposes to entertain the town to the tune of
Doctors' Commons. She does not mince her disappointments: here
is an epigram that has been made on the subject:-
"As Anson his voyage to my lady was reading,
And recounting his dangers--thank God she's not breeding!
He came to the passage, where, like the old Roman,
He stoutly withstood the temptation of woman;
The Baroness smiled; when continuing, he said,
"Think what terror must there fill the poor lover's head."
"Alack!" quoth my lady, "he had nothing to fear,
Were that Scipio as harmless as you are, my dear."
(59) Mr. Chute's.
(60) Francis Ayscough, Dean of Bristol, tutor to Prince
George.-E.
36 Letter 9
To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, July 20th, 1749.
I am returned to my Strawberry, and find it in such beauty,
that I shall be impatient till I see you and your sisters here.
They must excuse me if I don't marry for their reception; for
it is said the Drax's have impeached fifteen more damsels, and
till all the juries of matrons have finished their inquest, one
shall not care to make one's choice: I was going to say, "throw
one's handkerchief," but at present that term would be a little
equivocal.
As I came to town I was extremely entertained with some
excursions I made out of the road in search of antiquities. At
Layer Marney is a noble old remnant of the palace of the Lords
of Marney, with three very good tombs in the church well
preserved. At Messing I saw an extreme fine window of painted
glass in the church; it is the duties prescribed in the Gospel
of visiting the sick and prisoners, etc. I mistook, and
called it the seven deadly sins. There is a very old tomb of
Sir Robert Messing, that built the church. The hall-place is a
fragment of an old house belonging to Lord Grimston;(61) Lady
Luckyn his mother, of fourscore and six, lives in it with an
old son and daughter. The servant who showed it told us much
history of another brother that had been parson there: this
history was entirely composed of the anecdotes of the doctor's
drinking. who, as the man told us, had been a blood. There are
some Scotch arms taken from the rebels in the '15, and many old
coats of arms on glass brought from Newhall, which now belongs
to Olmius. Mr. Conyers bought a window(62) there for only a
hundred pounds, on which is painted Harry the Eighth and one of
his queens at full length: he has put it up at Copt-hall, a
seat which he has bought that belonged to Lord North and Grey.
You see I persevere in my heraldry. T'other day the parson of
Rigby's parish dined with us; he has conceived as high an
opinion of my skill in genealogies, as if I could say the first
chapter of Matthew by heart. Rigby drank my health to him, and
that I might come to be garter king at arms: the poor man
replied with great zeal, "I wish he may with all my heart."
Certainly, I am born to preferment; I gave an old woman a penny
once, who prayed that I might live to be lord mayor of London!
What pleased me most in my travels was Dr. Sayer's parsonage at
Witham, which, with Southcote's help, whose old Roman Catholic
father lives just by him, he has made one of the most charming
villas in England. There are sweet meadows falling down a
hill, and rising again on t'other side of the pretiest little
winding stream you ever saw. You did not at all surprise me
with the relation of the keeper's brutality to your family, or
of his master's to the dowager's handmaid. His savage temper
increases every day. George Boscawen is in a scrape with him
by a court-martial, of which he is one; it was appointed on a
young poor soldier, who to see his friends had counterfeited a
furlough only for a day. They ordered him two hundred lashes;
but Molkejunskoi, who loves blood like a leech, insisted it was
not enough-has made them sit three times (though every one
adheres to the first sentence,) and swears they shall sit these
six months till they increase the punishment. The fair Mrs.
Pitt has been mobbed in the Park, and with difficulty rescued
by some gentlemen, only because this bashaw is in love with
her. You heard, I suppose, of his other amour with the
Savoyard girl. He sent her to Windsor and offered her a hundred
pounds, which she refused because he was a heretic; he sent her
back on foot. Inclosed is a new print on this subject, which I
think has more humour than I almost ever saw in one of that sort.