Cues?(63) If' you have not heard his will, I will tell you.
The settled estate of eight thousand a year is to go between
the two daughters, out of which is a jointure of three thousand
a year to the Duchess-dowager, and to that he has added a
thousand more out of the unsettled estate, which is nine
thousand. He gives, together with his blessing, four thousand
per annum rent-charge to the Duchess of Manchester in present,
provided she will contest nothing with her sister, who is to
have all the rest, and the reversion of the whole after Lady
Cardigan and her children; but in case she disputes, Lady
Hinchinbrooke and hers are in the entail next to the Cardigans,
who are to take the Montagu name and livery. I don't know what
Mr. Hussey will think of the blessing, but they say his Duchess
will be inclined to mind it; she always wanted to be well with
her father, but hated her mother. There are two codicils, one
in favour of his servants, and the other of' his dogs, cats,
and creatures; which was a little unnecessary, for lady
Cardigan has exactly his turn for saving every thing's life.
As he was making the codicil, One of his cats jumped on his
knee; "What," says he, "have you a mind to be a witness too!
You can't, for you are a party concerned." Lord Stafford is
going to send his poor wife with one maid and one horse to a
farm-house in Shropshire for ever. The Mirepoix's are come;
but I have not yet seen them. A thousand compliments to your
sisters.
(61) Sir Samuel Grimston, Bart. left an heiress, who married
Sir Capel Luckyn, bart. Their son changed his name to
Grimston, and was created a baron and a Viscount.
(62) This window is now in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster.
(63) John, Duke of Montague.
38 letter 10
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, July 24, 1749.
You and Dr. Cocchi have made me ashamed with the civilities you
showed to my book-I hope it blushed!
You have seen the death of the Duke of Montagu(64) in all the
papers. His loss will be extremely felt! he paid no less than
2700 pounds a year in private pensions, which ought to be
known, to balance the immense history of his places; of which
he was perpetually obtaining new, and making the utmost of all:
he had quartered on the great wardrobe no less than thirty
nominal tailors and arras-workers. - This employment is to be
dropped; his others are not yet given away. My father had a
great opinion of his understanding, and at the beginning of the
war was most desirous of persuading him to be Generalissimo;
but the Duke was very diffident of himself, and, having seen
little service, would not accept it, In short, with some foibles,
he was a most amiable man, and one of the most feeling I ever
knew. His estate is 17,000 pounds a year; the Duchess of
Manchester must have four of it; all the rest he has given,
after four thousand a year to the Duchess-dowager shall fall
in, to his other daughter Lady Cardigan. Lord Vere
Beauclerc(65) has thrown his into the list of vacant
employments: he resigned his lordship of the admiralty on
Anson's being preferred to him for vice-admiral of England; but
what heightened the disgust, was Lord Vere's going to a party
to visit the docks with Sandwich and Anson, after this was
done, and yet they never mentioned it to him. It was not
possible to converse with them upon good terms every day
afterwards. You perceive our powers and places are in a very
fluctuating situation: the Prince will have a catalogue of
discontented ready to fill the whole civil list. My Lord
Chancellor was terrified the other day with a vision of such a
revolution; he saw Lord Bath kiss hands, and had like to have
dropped the seals with the agony of not knowing what it was
for--it was only for his going to Spa. However, as this is an
event which the Chancellor has never thought an impossible one,
he is daily making Christian preparation against it. He has
just married his other daughter to Sir John Heathcote's
son;(66) a Prince little inferior to Pigwiggin in person; and
procreated in a greater bed of money and avarice than Pigwiggin
himself: they say, there is a peerage already promised to him
by the title of Lord Normanton. The King has consented to give
two earldoms to replace the great families of Somerset and
Northumberland in their descendants; Lady Betty Smithson is to
have the latter title after the Duke of Somerset's death, and
Sir Charles Windham any other appellation he shall choose. You
know Lord Granville had got a grant of Northumberland for him,
but it was stopped. These two hang a little, by the Duke of
Somerset's wanting to have the earldom for his son-in-law,(67)
instead of his daughter.(68)
You ask me about the principles of the Methodists: I have tried
to learn them, and have read one of their books. The visible
part seems to be nothing but stricter practice than that of our
church, clothed in the old exploded cant of mystical devotion.
For example, you take a metaphor; we will say our passions are
weeds; you immediately drop every description of the passions,
and adopt every thing peculiar to weeds: in five minutes a true
Methodist will talk with the greatest compunction of hoeing--this
catches women of fashion and shopkeepers.
I have now a request to make to you: Mrs. Gibberne is extremely
desirous of having her son come to England for a short time.
There is a small estate left to the family, I think by the
uncle; his presence is absolutely necessary: however, the poor
woman is so happy in his situation with you, that she talks Of
giving up every thing rather than disoblige you by fetching him
to England. She has been so unfortunate as to lose a favourite
daughter ' that was just married greatly to a Lisbon merchant:
the girl was so divided in her affections, that she had a mind
not to have followed her husband to Portugal. Mrs. Leneve, to
comfort the poor woman, told her what a distress this would
have been either way: she was so struck with this position,
that she said, "Dear Madam, it is very lucky she died!"--and
since that, she has never cried, but for joy! Though it is
impossible not to smile at these awkward sensations of
unrefined nature, yet I am sure your good nature will agree
with me in giving the poor creature this satisfaction; and
therefore I beg it. Adieu!
(64) John, the last Duke of Montague, was knight of the garter,
great master of the order of the Bath, master of the great
wardrobe, Colonel of the Blues, etc. etc.
(65) Lord Vere Beauclerc, brother of the Duke of St. Albans,
afterwards created Lord Vere of Hanworth.
(66) Sir John Heathcote, Bart. of Normanton Park, in
Rutlandshire. He was the son of Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Lord
Mayor of London, who acquired a vast fortune, and was created a
baronet in 1733. Sir John's son, Sir Gilbert, the third
baronet, married to his first wife, Margaret, youngest daughter
of the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke.-D.
(67) Sir Hugh Smithson.
(68) The Duke of Somerset was eventually created Earl of
Northumberland with remainder to Sir Hugh Smithson, and Earl of
Egremont with remainder to Sir Charles Wyndham.-D.
40 Letter 11
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 17, 1749.
I hear of nothing but your obliging civilities to the
Barrets:(69) I don't wonder you are attentive to please; my
amazement is, when I find it well distributed: you have all
your life been making Florence agreeable to every body that
came there, who have almost all forgot it--or worse. But Mr.
and Mrs. Barret do you justice, and as they are very sensible
and agreeable, I am persuaded you will always find that they
know how to esteem such goodness as yours. Mr. Chute has, this
morning received here a letter from Mr. ]Barret, and will
answer it very soon. Mr. Montagu is here too, and happy to
hear he is so -well, and recommends several compliments to your
conveyance.
Your brother mentions your being prevented writing to me, by
the toothache: I hate you should have any pain.
You always let us draw upon you for such weight of civilities
to any body we recommend, that if I did not desire to show my
attention, and the regard I have for Count LorenZi,(70) yet it
would be burning ingratitude not to repay you. I have
accordingly been trying to be very civil to the Chevalier; I
did see him Once at Florence. To-morrow I am to fetch him
hither to dinner, from Putney, where the Mirepoix's have got a
house. I gave Madame her father's simple\ letter, of which she
took no more notice than it deserved; but Prince Beauvau(71) has
written her a very particular one about me, and
is to come over himself in the winter to make me a visit: this
has warmed their politesse. I should have known the
Ambassadress any where by the likeness to her family. He is
cold and stately, and not much tasted here. She is very
sensible; but neither of them satisfy me in one point; I wanted
to see something that was the quintessence of the newest bon
ton, that had the last bel air, and spoke the freshest jargon.
These people have scarce ever lived at Paris, are reasonable,
and little amusing with follies. They have brought a cousin
of' his, a Monsieur de Levi, who has a tantino of what I wanted
to see. You know they pique themselves much upon their Jewish
name, and call cousins with the Virgin Mary. They have a
picture in the family, where she is made to say to the founder
of the house, "Couvrez vous, Mon cousin." He replies, "Non
pas, ma tr`es sainte cousine, je scai trop bien le respect que
je vous dois."(72)
There is nothing like news: Kensington Palace was like to have
made an article the other night; it was on fire: my Lady
Yarmouth has an ague, and is forced to keep a constant fire in
her room against the damps. When my Lady Suffolk lived in that
apartment, the floor produced a constant crop of mushrooms.
Though there are so many vacant chambers, the King hoards all
he can, and has locked up half the palace since the queen's
death: so he does at St. James's, and I believe would put the
rooms out on interest, if he could get a closet a year for
them! Somebody told my Lady Yarmouth they wondered she could
live in that unwholesome apartment, when there are so many
other rooms: she replied, "Mais pas pour moy."
The scagliola tables are arrived, and only one has suffered a
little on the edge: the pattern is perfectly pretty. It would
oblige me much if you could make the Friar make a couple more
for me, and with a little more expedition.
Don't be so humble about your pedigree: there is not a pipe of
good blood in the kingdom but we will tap for you: Mr. Chute
has it now in painting; and you may depend on having it with
the most satisfactory proofs, as soon as it can possibly be
finished. He has taken great pains, and fathomed half the
genealogies in England for you.
You have been extremely misinformed about my father's writing
his own history: I often pressed it, but he never once threw a
thought that way. He neither loved reading nor writing; and at
last, the only time he had leisure, was not well enough. He
used to say, "that but few men should ever be ministers, for it
let them see too much of the badness of mankind." Your story,
I imagine, was inoculated on this speech. Adieu!
(69) Thomas Barrett-Lennard, afterwards Lord Dacre of the
South, and his wife, Anne, daughter of Lord Chief Justice
Pratt, afterwards Lord Camden.
(70) The French minister at Florence.
(71) The brother of Madame de Mirepoix, afterwards a marshal of
France.-D.
(72) There is said to have been another equally absurd picture
in the same family, in which Noah is represented going into the
ark, carrying under his arm a small trunk, on which was written
"Papiers de la maison de Levis."-D.
42 Letter 12
To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, August 26, 1749.
Dear George,
I flatter myself that you are quite recovered of your disorder,
and that your sisters will not look with an evil eye on
Strawberry Hill. Mr. Chute and I are returned from our
expedition miraculously well, considering all our distresses.
If you love good roads, conveniences, good inns, plenty of
postilions and horses, be so kind as never to go into Sussex.
We thought ourselves in the northest part of England; the whole
country has a Saxon air, and the inhabitants are savage, as if
King George the Second had been the first monarch of the East
Angles. Coaches grow there no more than balm and spices; we
were forced to drop our postchaise, that resembled nothing so
much as harlequin's calash, which was occasionally a chaise or
a baker's cart. We journeyed over Alpine mountains, drenched
in clouds, and thought of harlequin again, when he was driving
the chariot of the sun through the morning clouds, and so was
glad to hear the aqua vitae man crying a dram. At last we got
to Arundel Castle, which was visibly built for defence in an
impracticable country. It is now only a heap of ruins, with a
new indifferent apartment clapt up for the Norfolks, when they
reside there for a week or a fortnight. Their priest showed us
about. There are the walls of a round tower where the garrison
held out against Cromwell; he planted a battery on the top of
the church, and reduced them. There is a gloomy gateway and
dunccons, in one of which I conclude is kept the old woman who,
in the time of the late rebellion, offered to show Lord Robert
Sutton(73) where arms were hidden at Worksop.(74) The Duchess
complimented him into dining before his search, and in the mean
time the woman was spirited away, and adieu the arms. There
are fine monuments of the old Fitzalans, Earls of Arundel, in
the church. Mr. Chute, whom I have created Strawberry king at
arms, has had brave sport a la chasse aux armes.
We are charmed with the magnificence of the park at
Petworth,(75) which is Percy to the backbone; but the house and
garden did not please our antiquarian spirit. The house is
entirely new-fronted in the style of the Tu'lleries, and
furnished exactly like Hampton Court. There is one room
gloriously flounced all round whole-length pictures, with much
the finest carving of Gibbins that ever my eyes beheld. There
are birds absolutely feathered; and two antique vases with bas
relieves, as perfect and beautiful as if they were carved by a
Grecian master. There is a noble Claude Lorrain, a very
curious Picture of the haughty Anne Stanhope, the Protector's
wife,(76) pretty
but not giving one an idea of her character, and many old
portraits; but the housekeeper was at London, and we did not
learn half. The chapel is grand and proper. At the inn we
entertained ourselves with the landlord, whom my Lord Harvey
had cabineted when he went to woo one of the Lady Seymours.
Our greatest pleasure was in seeing Cowdry, which is repairing;
Lord Montacute(77) will at last live in it. We thought of old
Margaret of Clarence, who lived there; one of her accusations
was built on the bulls found there. It was the palace of her
great uncle, the Marquis of Montacute. I was charmed with the
front, and the court, and the fountain; but the room called
Holbein's, except the curiosity of it, is wretchedly painted,
and infinitely inferior to those delightful stories of Harry
the Eighth in the private apartment at Windsor. I was much
pleased with a whole length picture of Sir Anthony Brown in the
very dress in which he wedded Anne of Cleves by proxy. He is
in blue and white, only his right leg is entirely white, which
was certainly robed for the act of putting into bed to her; but
when the King came to marry her, he only put his leg into bed
to kick her out of it.
I have set up my staff, and finished my pilgrimages for this
year. Sussex is a great damper of curiosity. Adieu! my
compliments to your sisters.
(73) lord Robert Sutton, third son of the Duke of rutland.
(74) A seat of the Duke of Norfolk in Nottinghamshire.
(75) A seat of Sir Charles Wyndham, who succeeded to the title
of Earl of Egremont on the death of his uncle Algernon, Duke of
Somerset.
(76) Second wife of Edward, Duke of Somerset, Protector in the
reign of his nephew, Edward VI.-E.
(77) Anthony, the sixth Viscount Montagu, descended from
Anthony Brown, created Viscount Montagu in 1554, being
descended from John Neville, Marquis of Montagu.
43 Letter 13
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 12, 1749,
I have your two letters to answer of August 15th and 26, and,
as far as I see before me, have a great deal of paper, which I
don't know how to fill. The town is notoriously empty; at
Kensington they have scarce company enough to pay for lighting
the candles. The Duke has been for a week with the Duke of
Bedford at Woburn; Princess Emily remains, saying civil things;
for example, the second time she saw Madame de Mircpoix, she
cried out, "Ah! Madame, vous n'avez pas tant de rouge
aujourd'hui: la premi`ere fois que vous `etes `a not venue ici,
vous aviez une quantit`e horrible." This the Mirepoix herself
repeated to me; you may imagine her astonishment,--I mean, as
far as your duty will give you leave. I like her extremely;
she has a great deal of quiet sense. They try much to be
English and whip into frocks without measure, and fancy they
are doing the fashion. Then she has heard so much of that
villanous custom of giving money to the servants of other
people, that there is no convincing her that women of fashion
never give; she distributes with both hands. The Chevalier
Lorenzi has dined with me here: I gave him venison, and, as he
was determined to like it, he protested it was "as good as
beef." You will be delighted with what happened to him: he was
impatient to make his brother's compliments to Mr. Chute, and
hearing somebody at Kensington call Mr. Schutz, he easily mistook
the sound, and went up to him, and asked him if he had not been
at Florence! Schutz with the utmost Hanoverian gravity, replied,
"Oui, oui, J'ai `et`e `a Florence, oui, oui:--mais o`u est-il,
ce Florence?"
The Richcourts(78) are arrived, and have brought with them a
strapping lad of your Count; sure, is it the boy my Lady O.
used to bring up by hand? he is pretty picking for her now.
The woman is handsome, but clumsy to a degree, and as much too
masculine as her lover Rice is too little so. Sir Charles
Williams too is arrived, and tells me how much he has heard in
your praise in Germany. Villettes is here, but I have had no
dealings with him. I think I talk nothing but foreign
ministers to-day, as if I were just landed from the Diet of
Ratisbon. But I shall have done on this chapter, and I think
on all others, for you say such extravagant things of my
letters, which are nothing but Gossiping gazettes, that I
cannot bear it. Then you have undone yourself with me, for you
compare them to Madame Sevign`e,'s; absolute treason! Do you
know, there is scarce a book in the world I love so much as her
letters?
How infinitely humane you are about Gibberne! Shall I amuse
you with the truth of that history, which I have discovered?
The woman, his mother, has pressed his coming for a very
private reason--only to make him one of the most considerable
men in this country!-and by what wonderful means do you think
this mighty business is to be effected? only by the beauties of
his person! As I remember, he was as little like an Adonis as
could be: you must keep this inviolably; but depend upon the
truth of it-I mean, that his mother really has this idea. She
showed his picture to--why, to the Duchess of Cleveland, to the
Duchess of Portsmouth, to Madame Pompadour; in short, to one of
them, I don't know which, I only know it was not to my Lady
Suffolk, the King's former mistress. "Mon Dieu! Madame, est-il
frai que fotrc fils est si sholi que ce bortrait? il faut que
je le garte; je feux apsolument l'afoir." The woman protested
nothing ever was so handsome as her lad, and that the nasty
picture did not do him half justice. In short, she flatters
herself that the Countess(79) will do him whole justice-. I
don't think it impossible but, out of charity, she may make him
groom of the chambers. I don't know, indeed, how the article
of beauty may answer; but if you should lose your Gibberne, it
is good to have @ a friend at court.
Lord Granby is going to be married to the eldest of the Lady
Seymours; she has above a hundred and thirty thousand pounds.
The Duke of Rutland will take none of it, but gives at present
six thousand a-year.
That I may keep my promise to myself of having nothing to tell
you I shall bid you good night; but I really do know no more.
Don't whisper my anecdote even to Gibberne, if he is not yet
set out; nor to the Barrets. I wish you a merry, merry baths
of Pisa, as the link-boys say at Vauxhall. Adieu!
(78) Count Richcourt, brother of the minister at Florence, and
envoy from the Emperor; his wife was a Piedmontese.
(79) Lady Yarmouth.
45 Letter 14
To John Chute, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 22, 1749.
My dear sir,
I expect Sir Charles Williams to scold me excessively. He
wrote me a letter, in which he desired that I would send you
word by last Post, that he expected to meet you here by
Michaelmas, according to your promise. I was unfortunately at
London; the letter was directed hither from Lord Ilchester's,
where he is; and so I did not receive it till this morning. I
/hope, however, this will be time enough to put you in mind of
your appointment; but while I am so much afraid of Sir
Charles's anger, I seem to forget the pleasure I shall have in
seeing you myself; I hope you know that: but he is still The
more pressing, as he will stay so little time in England.
Adieu!
45 Letter 15
To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 28, 1749.
I am much obliged to you, dear sir, and agree with your opinion
about the painting of Prince Edward, that it cannot be original
and authentic, and consequently not worth copying. Lord
Cholmondeley is, indeed, an original; but who are the wise
people that build for him? Sir Philip Harvey seems to be the
only person likely to be benefited by this new extravagance. I
have just seen a collection of tombs like those you describe--
the house of Russel robed in alabaster and painted. There are
seven monuments in all; one is immense, in marble, cherubim'd
and seraphim'd, crusted with bas-reliefs and titles, for the
first Duke of Bedford and his Duchess.(80) All these are in a
chapel of the church at Cheneys, the seat of the first Earls.
There are but piteous fragments of the house remaining, now a
farm, built round three sides of a court. It is dropping down,
in several places without a roof, but in half the windows are
beautiful arms in painted glass. As these are so totally
neglected, I propose making a push, and begging them of the
Duke of Bedford. They would be magnificent for
Strawberry-castle. Did I tell you that I have found a text in
Deuteronomy to authorize my future battlements? "When thou
buildest a new house, then shalt thou make a battlement for thy
roof, that thou bring not blood upon thy house, if any man fall
from thence."
I saw Cheneys at a visit I have been making to Harry Conway at
Latimers. This house, which they have hired, is large, and
bad, and old, but of a bad age; finely situated on a hill in a
beech wood, with a river at the bottom, and a range of hills
and woods on the opposite side belonging to the Duke of
Bedford. They are fond of it; the view is melancholy. In the
church at Cheneys Mr. Conway put on an old helmet we found
there: you cannot imagine how it suited him, how antique and
handsome he looked; you would have taken him for Rinaldo. Now
I have dipped you so deep in heraldry and genealogies, I shall
beg you to step into the church of Stoke; I know it is not
asking you to do, a disagreeable thing to call there; I want an
account of the tomb of the first Earl of Huntingdon, an
ancestor of mine, who lies there. I asked Gray, but he could
tell me little about it. You know how out of humour Gray has
been about our diverting ourselves with pedigrees, which is at
least as wise as making a serious point of haranguing against
the study. I believe neither Mr. Chute nor I ever contracted a
moment's vanity from any of our discoveries,
or ever preferred them to any thing but brag and whist. Well,
Gray has set himself to compute, and has found out that there
must go a million of ancestors in twenty generations to every
body's composition.
I dig and plant till it is dark; all my works are revived and
proceeding. When will you come and assist? You know I have an
absolute promise, and shall now every day expect you. My
compliments to your sisters.
(80) Anne, daughter of Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset.
46 Letter 16
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, October 27, 1749.
You never was more conveniently in fault in your life: I have
been going to make you excuses these ten days for not writing;
and while I was inventing them, your humble letter of Oct. 10th
arrives. I am so glad to find it is you that are to blame, not
I. Well, well, I am all good nature, I forgive you; I can
overlook such little negligences.
Mr. Chute is indefatigable in your service, but Anstis(81) has
been very troublesome; he makes as many difficulties in signing
a certificate about folks that are dead as if they were
claiming an estate. I am sorry you are so pressed, for poor
Mr. Chute is taken off from this pursuit: he was fetched from
hence this day se'nnight to his infernal brother's, where a
Mrs. Mildmay, whom you must have heard him mention, is dead
suddenly: this may turn out a very great misfortune to our
friend.
Your friend, Mr. Doddington, has not quite stuck to the letter
of the declaration he sent you: he is first minister at
Carlton-house, and is to lead the Opposition; but the misfortune
is, nobody will be led by him. That whole court is in disorder
by this event: every body else laughs.
I am glad the Barrets please you, and that I have pleased Count
Lorenzi. I must tell a speech of the Chevalier, which you will
reconnoitre for Florentine; one would think he had seen no more
of the world than his brother.(82) He was visiting Lady
Yarmouth with Mirepoix: he drew a person into a window, and
whispered him; Dites moi un peu en ami, je vous en prie; qu'est
ce que c'est que Miledi Yarmouth."--"Eh! bien, vous ne savez
pas?"--"Non, ma foi: nous savons ce que c'est que Miledi
Middlesex.,"
Gibberne is arrived. I don't tell you this apropos to the
foregoing paragraph: he has wanted to come hither, but I have
waived his visit till I am in town.
I announce to you the old absurd Countess--not of Orford, but
Pomfret. Bistino will have enough to do: there is Lady
Juliana,(83) who is very like, but not so handsome as Lady
Granville; 'and Lady Granville's little child. They are
actually in France; I don't doubt but you will have them. I
shall pity you under a second edition of her follies. Adieu!
Pray ask my pardon for my writing you so short a letter.
(81) Garter King at Arms. (It was to him Lord Chesterfield
said, "You foolish man, you do not know your own foolish
business."-D.)
(82) Who had never been out of Tuscany.
(83) In 1751 married to Thomas Penn, Esq. of Stoke Pogies. See
ant`e, p. 13, letter 1.-E.
47 Letter 17
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Nov. 17, 1749.
At last I have seen le beau Gibberne: I was extremely glad to
see him, after I had done contemplating his person, which
surely was never designed to figure in a romance. I never saw
a creature so grateful! It is impossible not to be touched
with the attachment he has for you. He talks of returning;
and, indeed, I would advise it for his sake: he is quite
spoiled for living in England, and had entirely forgot what
Visigoths his countrymen are. But I must drop him to thank you
for the charming intaglio which you have stolen for me by his
means: it is admired as much as it deserves; but with me it has
all the additional merit of coming from you. Gibberne says you
will be frightened at a lamentable history(84 that you will
read of me in the newspapers; but pray don't be frightened:
-the danger, great as it was, was over before I had any notion
of it; and the hurt did not deserve mentioning. The relation
is so near the truth, that I need not repeat it; and, indeed,
the frequent repetition has 'Been much worse than the robbery.
I have at last been relieved by the riots(85) at the new French
theatre, and by Lord Coke's lawsuit.(86) The first has been
opened twice; the latter to-day. The young men of fashion, who
espouse the French players, have hitherto triumphed: the old
ladies, who countenance Lady Mary Coke, are likely to have their
gray beards brought with sorrow to the grave. It will ,be a new
aera, (or, as my Lord Baltimore calls it, a new area,) in
English history, to have the mob and the Scotch beat out of two
points that they have endeavoured to make national. I dare say
the Chevalier Lorenzi will write ample accounts to Florence of
these and all our English phenomena. I think, if possible, we
brutalize more and more: the only difference is, that though
every thing is anarchy, there seems to be less general party
than ever. The humours abound, but there wants some notable
physician to bring them to a head.
The Parliament met yesterday: we had opposition, but no
division on the address.
Now the Barrets have left you, Mr. Chute and I will venture to
open our minds to you a little; that is, to comfort you for the
loss of your friends - we will abuse them--that is enough in
the way of the world. Mr. Chute had no kind of acquaintance
with Mr. Barret till just before he set out: I, who have known
him all my life, must tell you that all those nerves are
imaginary, and that as long as there are distempers in the
world, he will have one or two constantly upon his list. I
don't know her; I never heard much of her understanding, but I
had rather take your opinion; or at least, if I am not
absolutely so complaisant, I will believe that you was
determined to like them on Mr. Chute's account. I would not
speak so plainly to you (and have not I been very severe?) if I
were not sure that your good nature would not relax any offices
of friendship to them. You will scold me black and blue; but
you know I always tell you when the goodness of your heart
makes you borrow a little from that of other people to lend to
their heads. Good night!
(84) Mr. Walpole had been robbed the week before in Hyde Park,
and narrowly escaped being killed by the accidental going off
of the highwayman's pistol, which did stun him, and took off
the skin of his cheekbone.
(85) The mob was determined not to suffer French Players; and
Lord Trentham's engaging in their defence was made great use,
of against him at the ensuing election for Westminster; where
he was to be rechosen, on being appointed a lord of the
admiralty.
(86) Lady Mary Coke swore the peace against her husband.
48 letter 18
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Jan. 10, 1750.
I don't at all know what to say to you, for not having writ to
you since the middle of November: I only know that nothing has
happened, and so I have omitted telling you nothing. I have
had two from you in the interim, one of Nov. @8th, and one
without a date, in which you are extremely kind about my
robbery, of which in my last I assured you there were no
consequences: thank you a thousand times for having felt so
much on my account. Gibberne has been with me again to-day, as
his mother was a fortnight ago: she talked me to death, and three
times after telling me her whole history, she said, "Well then,
Sir, upon the whole," and began it all again. Upon the whole, I
think she has a mind to keep her son in England; (-ind he has a
mind to be kept, though in my opinion he is very unfit for living
in England--he is too polished! For trade, she says, he is in a
cold sweat if she mentions it; and so they propose, by the
acquaintance, he says,. his mother has among the quality, to get
him that nothing called something. I assured them, you had too
much friendship for him to desire his return, if it would be a
prejudice to his interest--did not I say right? He seems a
good creature; too good to make his way here.
I beg you will not omit sending me every tittle that happens to
compose my Lady Pomfret's second volume. We see perpetual
articles of the sale of the furniture in the Great Duke's
villas: is there any truth in it? You would know me again, if
you saw me playing at pharaoh on one side of Madame de
Mirepoix, as I used to do by her mother: I like her extremely,
though she likes nothing but gaming. His pleasure is dancing:
don't you envy any body that can have spirits to be so simple
as to like themselves in a minuet after fifty? Don't tell his
brother, but the Chevalier Lorenzi is the object of the
family's entertainment. With all the Italian thirst for
English knowledge, he vents as many absurdities as if he had a
passion for Ireland too. He saw some of the Florentine Gesses
at Lord Lincoln's; he showed them to the Ambassadress with
great transport, and assured her that the Great Duke had the
originals, and that there never had been made any copies of
them. He told her the other day that he had seen a sapphire of
the size of her diamond ring,,, and worth more: she said that
could not be. "Oh!" said he, "I mean, supposing your diamond
were a sapphire."
I want to know Dr. Cocchi's and your opinion of two new French
books, if you have seen them. One is Montesquieu's "Esprit des
Loix;" which I think the best book that ever was written--at
least I never learned half so much from all I ever read. There
is )s much wit as useful knowledge. He is said to have hurt
his reputation by it in France, which I can conceive, for it is
almost the interest of every body there that can understand it
to decry it. The other, far inferior, but entertaining,, is
Hainault's "Abrege Chronologique de l'Histoire de France." It
is very amusing, though very full of Frenchisms; and though an
abridgment, often so minute as to tell you when the
Quinzevingts first wore flower-de-luces on their shoulders: but
there are several little circumstances that give one an idea of
the manners of old time, like Dr. Cocchi's treatise on the old
rate of expenses.
There has been nothing particular in Parliament - all our
conversation has turned on the Westminster election, on which,
after a vast struggle, Lord Trentham had the majority. Then
came on the scrutiny: after a week's squabbling on the right of
election, the High-bailiff declared what he would take to be
the right. They are now proceeding to disqualify votes on that
foot; but as his decision could not possibly please both sides, I
fear it will come to us at last.
Lord Pembroke(87) died last night: he had been at the Bridge
Committee,(88) in the morning, where, according to custom, he
fell into an outrageous passion; as my Lord Chesterfield told
him, that ever since the pier sunk he has constantly been
damming and sinking. The watermen say to-day, that now the
great pier (peer) is quite gone. Charles Stanhope carried him
home in his chariot; he desired the coachman to drive gently,
for he could not avoid those passions; and afterwards, between
shame and his asthma, he always felt daggers, and should
certainly one day or other die in one of those fits.
Arundel,(89) his great friend and relation, came to him soon
after: he repeated the conversation, and said, he did not know
but he might die by night. "God bless you! If I see you no
more, take this as my last farewell!" He died in his chair at
seven o'clock. He certainly is a public loss; for he was
public-spirited and inflexibly honest, though prejudice and
passion were so predominant in him that honesty had not fair
play, whenever he had been set upon any point that had been
given him for right. In his lawsuit with my Lady Portland he
was scurrilously indecent, though to a woman; and so
blasphemous at tennis, that the present primate of Ireland(90)
was forced to leave off playing with him. Last year he went
near to destroy post-chaises, on a quarrel with the postmaster
at Hounslow, who, as he told the Bishop of Chichester, had an
hundred devils and Jesuits in his belly. In short, he was one
of the lucky English madmen who get people to say, that
whatever extravagance they commit "Oh, it is his way." He began
his life with boxing, and ended it with living upon vegetables,
into which system avarice a little entered. At the beginning
of the present war, he very honourably would resign his
regiment, though the King pressed him to keep it, because his
rupture hindered his serving abroad. My father, with whom he
was always well, would at any time have given him the blue
riband; but he piqued himself on its being offered to him
without asking it. the truth was, he did not care for the
expense of the instalment. His great excellence was
architecture: the bridge at Wilton is more beautiful than any
thing of Lord Burlington or Kent. He has left an only son, a
fine boy about sixteen.(91) Last week, Lord Crawford(92) died
too, as is supposed, by taking a large quantity of laudanum,
under impatience at the badness of his circumstances, and at
the seventeenth opening of the wound which he got in Hungary,
in a battle with the Turks. I must tell you a story apropos of
two noble instances of fidelity and generosity. His servant, a
French papist, saw him fall; watched, and carried him off into
a ditch. Lord Crawford told him the Turks would certainly find
them, and that, as he could not live himself, it was in vain
for him to risk his life too, and insisted on the man making
his escape. After a long contest, the servant retired, found a
priest, confessed himself, came back, and told his lord that he
was now prepared to die, and would never leave him. The enemy
did not return, and both were saved. After Lord Crawford's
death, this story was related to old Charles Stanhope, Lord
Harrington's brother, whom I mentioned just now: he sent for
the fellow, told him he could not take him himself, but, as
from his lord's affairs he concluded he had not been able to
provide for him, he would give him fifty pounds, and did.
To make up for my long silence, and to make up for a long
letter, I will string another old story, which I have just
heard, to this. General Wade was at a low gaming-house, and
had a very fine snuffbox, which on a sudden he missed. Every
body denied having taken it: he insisted on searching the
company. He did: there remained only one man, who had stood
behind him, but refused to be searched, unless the general
would go into another room alone with him: there the man told
him, that he was born a gentleman, was reduced, and lived by
what little bets he could pick up there, and by fragments which
the waiters sometimes gave him. "At this moment I have half a
fowl in my pocket; I was afraid of being exposed; here it is!
Now, Sir, you may search me." Wade was so struck, that he gave
the man a hundred pounds; and immediately the genius of
generosity, whose province is almost a sinecure, was very glad
of the opportunity of making him find his own snuff-box, or
another very like it, in his own pocket again.
Lord Marchmont is to succeed Lord Crawford as one of the
sixteen: the House of Lords is so inactive that at last the
ministry have ventured to let him in there. His brother Hume
Campbell, who has been in a state of neutrality, begins to
frequent the House again.
It is plain I am no moneyed man; as I have forgot, till I came
to My last paragraph, what a ferment the money-changers are in!
Mr. Pelham, who has flung himself entirely into Sir John
Barnard's(93) hands, has just miscarried in a scheme for the
reduction of interest, by the intrigues of the three great
companies and other usurers. They all detest barnard, who, to
honesty and abilities, joins the most intolerable pride. @By my
next, I suppose, you will find that Mr. Pelham is grown afraid
of somebody else, of some director, and is governed by him.
Adieu!--Sure I am out of debt now!
P.S. My dear Sir, I must trouble you with a commission, which I
don't know whether you can execute. I am going to build a
little Gothic castle at Strawberry Hill. If you can pick me up
any fragments of old painted glass, arms, or any thing, I shall
be excessively obliged to you. I can't say I remember any such
things in Italy; but out of old chateaus, I imagine, one might
get it cheap, if there is any.
(87) Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and Groom of the stole.
For Walpole's character of him, see ant`e.-E.
(88) The committee under whose superintendence Westminster
Bridge had been built.-D.
(89) Richard Arundel, treasurer to the chambers: his mother,
the Dowager Lady Arundel, was second wife of Thomas, Earl of
Pembroke, father of Earl Henry.
(90) Dr. George Stone.
(91) Henry, tenth Earl of Pembroke, and seventh Earl of
Montgomery, He died in 1794.-D.
(92) John Lindsey Earl of Crawford, premier Earl of Scotland.
His life, which indeed had little remarkable in it, was
published afterwards, in a large quarto.
(93) An eminent citizen, and long member of Parliament for the
city of London. He at length accomplished his plan for the
reduction of the Interest of the National Debt.-D.
52 Letter 19
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Jan. 31, 1750.
You will hear little news from England, but of robberies;(94)
the numbers of disbanded soldiers and sailors have all taken to
the road, or rather to the street: people are almost afraid of
stirring after it is dark. My Lady Albemarle(95) was robbed
the other night in Great Russell Street, by nine men: the King
gave her a gold watch and chain the next day. She says, "the
manner was all"-and indeed so it was, for I never saw a more
frippery present; especially considering how great a favourite
she is, and my Lady Yarmouth's friend. The monarch is never
less generous than when he has a mind to be so: the only
present he ever made my father was a large diamond, cracked
quite through. Once or twice, in his younger and gallant days,
he has brought out a handful of maimed topazes and amethysts,
and given them to be raffled for by the maids of honour. I
told my Lady Yarmouth it had been a great loss to me that there
was no queen, for then I suppose I should have had a watch too
when I was robbed.
We have had nothing remarkable in Parliament, but a sort of
secession the other day on the Mutiny-bill, when Lord Egmont
and the Opposition walked out of the House, because the
ministry would go upon the Report, when they did not like It.
It is a measure of the Prince's court to lie by, and let the
ministry demolish one another, which they are hurrying to do.
The two secretaries(96) are on the brink of declaring war: the
occasion is likely to be given by a Turnpike-bill, contested
between the counties of Bedford and Northampton; and it (,rows
almost as vehement a contest as the famous one between
Aylesbury and Buckingham. The Westminster election is still
hanging in scrutiny: the Duke of Bedford paid the election,(97)
which he owns to have cost seven thousand pounds; and Lord
Gower pays the scrutiny, which will be at least as much. This
bustling little Duke has just had another miscarriage in
Cornwall, where he attacked a family-borough of the Morrices.
The Duke(97) espouses the Bedford; and Lord Sandwich is
espoused by both. He goes once or twice a-week to hunt with the
Duke; and as the latter has taken a turn of gaming, Sandwich, to
make his court and fortune carries a box and dice in his pocket;
and so they throw a main, whenever the hounds are at a fault,
"upon every green hill, and under every green tree."
But we have one shocking piece of news, the dreadful account of
the hurricane in the East Indies: you will see the particulars
in the papers; but we reckon that we don't yet know the worst..
Poor Admiral Boscawen(99) has been most unfortunate during his
whole expedition; and what increases the horror is, that I have
been assured by a very intelligent person, that Lord Anson
projected this business on purpose to ruin Boscawen, who, when
they came together from the victory off Cape Finisterre,
complained loudly of Anson's behaviour. To silence and to hurt
him, Anson despatched him to Pondicherry, upon slight
intelligence and upon improbable views.
Lord Coke's suit is still in suspense; he has been dying; she
was to have died, but has recovered wonderfully on his taking
the lead. Mr. Chute diverted me excessively with a confidence
that Chevalier Lorenzi made him the other night-I have told you
the style of his bon-mots! He said he should certainly return
to England again, and that whenever he did, he would land at
Bristol, because baths are the best places to make
acquaintance, just as if Mr. Chute, after living seven years in
Italy, and keeping the best company, should return thither, and
land at Leghorn, in order to make Italian acquaintance at Pisa!
Among the robberies, I might have told you of the eldest Miss
Pelham leaving a pair of diamond earrings, which she had
borrowed for the birth-day, in a hackney chair; she had put
them under the seat for fear of being attacked, and forgot
them. The chairmen have sunk them. The next morning, when
they were missed, the damsel began to cry: Lady Catherine(100)
grew frightened, lest her infanta should vex herself sick, and
summoned a jury of matrons to consult whether she should give
her hartshorn or lavender drops? Mrs. Selwyn,(101) who was on
the panel, grew very peevish, and said, "Pho! give her
brilliant drops." Such are the present anecdotes of the court
of England! Adieu!
(94) On the preceding day, in consequence of the number of
persons of distinction who had recently been robbed in the
streets, a proclamation appeared in the London Gazette,
offering a reward of one hundred pounds for the apprehension of
any robber.-E.
(95) Lady Anne Lenox, sister of the Duke of Richmond, wife of
William Anne Keppel, Earl of Albemarle, ambassador at Paris,
and lady of the bedchamber to Queen Caroline.
(96) the Dukes of Newcastle and Bedford.
(97) The Duke of Bedford's second wife was sister of Lord
Trentham, the candidate.
(98) Of Cumberland.
(99) Edward, next brother of Lord Falmouth.
(100) Lady Catherine Manners, sister of John, Duke of Rutland,
and wife of Henry Pelham, Chancellor of the exchequer.
(101) Mary Farenden, wife of John Selwyn, treasurer to Queen
Caroline, and woman of the bedchamber.
53 letter 20
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, Feb. 25, 1750.
I am come hither for a little repose and air. The fatigue of a
London winter, between Parliaments and rakery, is a little too
much without interruption for an elderly personage, that verges
towards--I won't say what. This accounts easily for my wanting
quiet--but air in February will make you smile--yet it is
strictly true, that the weather is unnaturally hot: we have had
eight months of' warmth beyond what was ever known in any other
country; Italy is quite north with respect to us!-You know we
have had an earthquake. Mr. Chute's Francesco says, that a few
evenings before it there was a bright cloud, which the mob
called the bloody cloud; that he had been told there never were
earthquakes in England, or else he should have known by that
symptom that there would be one within a week. I am told that
Sir Isaac Newton foretold a great alteration in Our climate in
the year '50, and that he wished he could live to see it.
Jupiter, I think, has jogged us three degrees nearer to the
sun.
The Bedford Turnpike, which I announced to you in my last, is
thrown out by a majority of fifty-two against the Duke of
Bedford. The Pelhams, who lent their own persons to him, had
set up the Duke of Grafton, to list their own dependents under
against their rival. When the Chamberlain would head a party,
you may be sure the opposite power is in the wane. The
Newcastle is at open war, and has left off waiting on the Duke,
who espouses the Bedfords. Mr. Pelham tries to patch it up,
and is getting the Ordnance for the Duke; but there are scarce
any terms kept. Lord Sandwich, who governs the little Duke
through the Duchess, is the chief object of the Newcastle
hatred. Indeed there never was such a composition! he is as
capable of all little knavery, as if he was not practising all
great knavery. During the turnpike contest, in which he
laboured night and day against his friend Halifax, he tried the
grossest tricks to break agreements, when the opposite side
were gone away on the security of a suspension of action: and
in the very middle of that I came to the knowledge of a cruel
piece of flattery which he paid to his protector. He had made
interest for these two years for one Parry, a poor clergyman,
schoolfellow and friend of his, to be fellow of Eton, and had
secured a majority for him. A Fellow died: another wrote to
Sandwich to know if he was not to vote for Parry according to
his engagement,--"No, he must vote for one who had been tutor
to the Duke of Bedford," who by that means has carried it. My
Lady Lincoln was not suffered to go to a ball which Sandwich
made the other night for the Duke, who tumbled down in the
middle of a country dance; they imagined he had beat his nose
flat, but he lay like a tortoise on the topshell, his face
could not touch the ground by some feet. My Lady Anson was
there, who insisted on dancing minuets, though against the rule
of the night, with as much eagerness as you remember in my Lady
Granville. Then she proposed herself for a Louvre; all the men
vowed they had never heard of such a dance, upon which she
dragged out Lady Leveson,(102) and made her dance one with her.
At the last ball at the same house, a great dispute of
precedence, which the Duchess of Norfolk had set on foot but
has dropped, came to trial. Lord Sandwich contrived to be on
the outside of the door to hand down to supper whatever lady
came out first. Madame de Mirepoix and the Duchess of Bedford
were the rival queens; the latter made a faint offer to the
ambassadress to go first; she returned it, and the other
briskly accepted it; upon which the ambassadress, with great
cleverness, made all the other women go before her, and then
asked the Duke of Bedford if he would not go too. However,
though they continue to visit, the wound is incurable: you
don't imagine that a widow(103) of the House of Lorraine, and a
daughter of Princess Craon, can digest such an affront. It
certainly was very absurd, as she is not only an ambassadress
but a stranger; and consequently all English women, as being at
home, should give her place. King George the Second and I
don't agree in our explication of this text of ceremony; he
approves the Duchess-so he does Miss Chudleigh, in a point
where ceremony is out of the question. He opened the trenches
before her a fortnight ago, at the masquerade- but at the last
she had the gout, and could not come; he went away flat, cross.
His son is not so fickle. My Lady Middlesex has been
miscarrying; he attends as incessantly as Mrs. Cannon.(104)
The other morning the Princess came to call him to go to Kew;
he made her wait in her coach above half an hour at the door.
You will be delighted with a bon-mot of a chair-maker, whom he
has discarded for voting for Lord Trentham; one of his
black-caps was sent to tell this Vaughan that the Prince would
employ him no more: "I am going to bid another person make his
Royal Highness a chair."--"With all my heart," said the
chair-maker; "I don't care what they make him, so they don't
make him a throne."
The Westminster election, which is still scrutinizing, produced
us a parliamentary event this week, and was very near producing
something much bigger. Mr. Fox and Mr. Pitt moved to Send for
the High-bailiff to inquire into the delay. The Opposition
took it up very high, and on its being carried against them,
the Court of Requests was filled next day with the mob, and the
House crowded, and big with expectation. Nugent had flamed and
abused Lord Sandwich violently, as author of this outrageous
measure. When the Bailiff appeared, the pacific spirit of the
other part of the administration had operated so much, that he
was dismissed with honour; and Only instructed to abridge all
delays by authority of the House-in short, "we spit in his hat
on Thursday, and wiped it off on Friday." This is a now
fashionable proverb, which I must construe to you. About ten
days ago, at the new Lady Cobham's(105) assembly, Lord
Hervey(106) was leaning over a chair, talking to some women,
and holding his hat in his hand. Lord Cobham came up and spit in
it--yes,
spit in it!--and then, with a loud laugh, turned to Nugent, and
said, "Pay me my wager." In short, he had laid a guinea that
he committed this absurd brutality, and that it was not
resented. Lord Hervey, with great temper and sensibility,
asked if he had any farther occasion for his hat?--"Oh! I see
you are angry!"--"Not very well pleased." Lord Cobham took the
fatal hat and wiped it, made a thousand foolish apologies, and
wanted to pass it for a joke. Next morning he rose with the
sun, and went to visit Lord Hervey; so did Nugent: he would not
see them, but wrote to the Spitter, (or, as he is now called,
Lord Gob'em,) to say, that he had affronted him very grossly
before company, but having involved Nugent in it, he desired to
know to which he was to address himself for satisfaction. Lord
Cobham wrote him a most submissive answer, and begged pardon
both in his own and Nugent's name. Here it rested for a few
days; till getting wind, Lord Hervey wrote again to insist on
an explicit apology under Lord Cobham's own hand, with a
rehearsal of the excuses that had been made to him. This, too,
was complied with, and the fair conqueror(107) shows all the
letters.(108) Nugent's disgraces have not ended here: the
night of his having declaimed so furiously he was standing by
Lady Catherine Pelham, against Lord Sandwich at the masquerade,
without his mask: she was telling him a history of a mad dog,
(which I believe she had bit herself.) young Leveson, the
Duchess of Bedford's brother, came up, without his mask too,
and looking at Nugent, said, , I have seen a mad dog to-day,
and a silly dog too."--"I suppose, Mr. Leveson,(109) you have
been looking in a glass."--"No, I see him now." Upon which
they walked off together, but were prevented from fighting, (if
Nugent would have fought,) and were reconciled at the
side-board. You perceive by this that our factions are
ripening. The Argyll(110) carried all the Scotch against the
turnpike: they were willing to be carried, for the Duke of
Bedford, in case it should have come into the Lords, had writ
to the sixteen Peers to solicit their votes; but with so little
deference, that he enclosed all the letters under one cover,
directed to the British Coffee-house!
The new Duke of Somerset(111) is dead: that title is at last
restored to Sir Edward Seymour, after his branch had been most
unjustly deprived of it for about one hundred and fifty years.
Sir Hugh Smithson and Sir Charles Windham are Earls of
Northumberland and Egremont, with vast estates; the former
title, revived for the blood of Percy, has the misfortune of
being coupled with the blood of a man that either let or drove
coaches--such Was Sir Hugh's grandfather! This peerage vacates
his seat for Middlesex, and has opened a contest for the county,
before even that for Westminster is decided. The Duchess of
Richmond takes care that house shall not be extinguished: she
again lies in, after having been with child seven-and-twenty
times: but even this is not so extraordinary as the Duke's
fondness for her, or as the vigour of her beauty: her complexion
is as fair and blooming as when she was a bride.
We expect some chagrin on the new regency, at the head of which
is to be the Duke; "Au Augustum fess`a aetate totiens in
Germaniam commeare potuisse," say the mutineers in Tacitus--
Augustus goes in April. He has notified to my Lord Orford his
having given the reversion of New Park to his daughter Emily;
and has given him leave to keep it in the best repair. One of
the German women, Madame Munchausen, his minister's wife,
contributes very kindly to the entertainment of the town. She
is ugly, devout, and with that sort of coquetry which proceeds
from a virtue that knows its own weakness so much as to be
alarmed, even when nothing is meant to its prejudice.(112) At
a great dinner which they gave last -week, somebody observed
that all the sugar figures in the dessert were girls: the Baron
replied, "Sa est frai; ordinairement les petits cupitons sont
des garsons; mais ma femme s'est amus`ee toute la matin`ee `a
en `oter tout sa par motestie." This improvement of hers is a
curious refinement, though all the geniuses of the age are
employed in designing new plans for desserts. The Duke of
Newcastle's last was a baby Vauxhall, illuminated with a
million of little lamps of various colours.
We have been sitting this fortnight on the African Company: we,
the British Senate, that temple of liberty, and bulwark of
Protestant Christianity, have this fortnight been pondering
methods to make more effectual that horrid traffic of selling
negroes. It has appeared to us that six-and-forty thousand of
these wretches are sold every year to our plantations alone!--
It chills one's blood. I would not have to say that I voted in
it for the continent of America!(113) The destruction of the
miserable inhabitants by the Spaniards was but a momentary
misfortune, that flowed from the discovery of the New World,
compared to this lasting havoc which it brought upon Africa.
We reproach Spain, and yet do not even pretend the nonsense of
butchering these poor creatures for the good of their souls!
I have just received your long letter of February 13th, and am
pleased that I had writ this volume to return it. I don't know
how almost to avoid wishing poor Prince Craon dead, to see the
Princess upon a throne.(114) I am sure she would invert Mr.
Vaughan's wish, and compound to have nothing else made for her,
provided a throne were.
I despise your literati enormously for their opinion of
Montesquieu's book. Bid them read that glorious chapter on the
subject I have been mentioning, the selling of African slaves.
Where did he borrow that? In what book in the world is there
half so much wit, sentiment, delicacy, humanity?
I shall speak much more gently to you, my dear child, though
you don't like Gothic architecture. The Grecian is only proper
for magnificent and public buildings. Columns and all their
beautiful ornaments look ridiculous when crowded into a closet
or a cheesecake-house. The variety is little, and admits no
charming irregularities. I am almost as fond of the
Sharavaggi, or Chinese want of symmetry, in buildings, as in
grounds or gardens. I am sure, whenever you come to England,
you will be pleased with the liberty of taste into which we are
struck, and of which you can have no idea! Adieu!
(102) Daughter of John, second Lord Gower. Married in 1751 to
the Hon. John Waldegrave.-D.
(103) madame de Mirepoix, eldest daughter of Prince Craon, and
widow of the Prince of Lixin.
(104) The midwife.
(105) Atina Chamber, wife of Richard Temple, Lord Cobham,
afterwards Earl Temple.
(106) George, eldest son of John, late Lord Hervey, son of the
Earl of Bristol, whom this George succeeded in the title.
(107) George, Lord Hervey, was a very effeminate-looking man;
which probably encouraged Lord Temple to risk this disgusting
act of incivility.-D.
(108) Wraxall, in his historical Memoir Vol:'I. p. 139, relates
the same story, with a few trifling alterations.-E.
(109) The Hon. Richard Leveson Gower, second son of John,
second Lord Gower, member for Lichfield. Born 1726; died
1753.-D.
(110) Archibald Campbell, third Duke of Argyll, during the
lifetime of bis elder brothers Duke John, Earl of Islay. He
died in 1765.-D.
(111) Algernon, last Duke of Somerset, of the younger
branch.-D.
(112) Dodington, in his Diary of the 25th of February, says, "
I met the Prince and Princess, by order, at Lady Middlesex's
where came Madame de Munchausen: we went to a fortune-teller's,
who was young Des Noyers, disguised and instructed to surprise
Madame de Munchausen, which he effectually did."-E.
(113) This sentiment is highly creditable to Walpole's
humanity. It will remind the reader of a passage in Cowper's
Task, written thirty years after:--
" And what man seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush,
And hang his head, to think himself a man!
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned,"-E.
(114) There was a notion that King Stanislaus, who lived in
Lorraine, was in love with her.
58 Letter 21
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, March 11, 1750.
"Portents and prodigies are grown so frequent,
That they have lost their name."(115)
My text is not literally true; but as far -,is earthquakes go
towards lowering the price of wonderful commodities, to be sure
we are overstocked. We have had a second much more violent
than the first; and you must not be surprised if by next post
you hear of' a burning mountain sprung up in Smithfield. In
the night between Wednesday and Thursday last, (exactly a month
since the first shock,) the earth had a shivering fit between
one and two; but so slight that, if no more had followed, I
don't believe it would have been noticed. I had been awake,
and had scarce dozed again-on a sudden I felt my bolster lift
up my head; I thought somebody was getting from under my bed,
but soon found it was a strong earthquake, that lasted near
half a minute, with a violent vibration and great roaring. I
rang my bell; my servant came in, frightened out of his senses-
- in an instant we heard all the windows in the neighbourhood
flung up. I got up and found people running into the streets,
but saw no mischief done: there has been some; two old houses
flung down, several chimneys, and much china-ware. The bells
rung in several houses. Admiral Knowles, who has lived long in
Jamaica, and felt seven there, says this was more violent than
any of them; Francesco prefers it to the dreadful one at Leghorn.
The wise say, that if we have not rain soon, we shall certainly
have more. Several people are going out of town, for it has
nowhere reached above ten miles from London: they say, they are
not frightened, but that it is such fine weather, "Lord! one
can't help going into the country!" The only visible effect it
has had, was on the Ridotto, at which, being the following night,
there were but four hundred people. A parson, who came into
White's the morning of earthquake the first, and heard bets laid
on whether it was an earthquake or the blowing up of
powder-mills, went away exceedingly scandalized, and said, "I
protest, they are such an impious set of people, that I believe
if the last trumpet was to sound, they would bet puppet-show
against Judgment." If we get any nearer still to the torrid zone,
I shall pique myself on sending you a present of cedrati and
orange-flower water: I am already planning a terreno for
Strawberry Hill.
The Middlesex election is carried against the court: the
Prince, in a green frock, (and I won't swear, but in a Scotch
plaid waistcoat,) sat under the park-wall in his chair, and
hallooed the voters on to Brentford. The Jacobites are so
transported, that they are opening subscriptions for all
boroughs that shall be vacant--this is wise! They will spend
their money to carry a few more seats in a Parliament where
they will never have the majority, and so have none to carry
the general elections. The omen, however, is bad for
Westminster; the High-bailiff went to vote for the Opposition.
I now jump to another topic; I find all this letter will be
detached scraps; I can't at all contrive to hide the scams: but
I don't care. I began my letter merely to tell you of the
earthquake, and I don't pique myself upon doing any more than
telling you what you would be glad to have told you. I told
you too how pleased I was with the triumphs of another old
beauty, our friend the Princess.(116) Do you know, I have
found a history that has a great resemblance to hers; that is,
that will be very like hers, if hers is but like it. I will
tell it you in as few words as I can. Madame la Marechale de
l'H`opital was the daughter of a sempstress;(117) a young
gentleman fell in love with her, and was going to be married to
her, but the match was broken off. An old fermier-general, who
had retired into the province where this happened, hearing the
story, had a curiosity to see the victim; he liked her, married
her, died, and left her enough not to care for her inconstant.
he came to Paris, where the Marechal de l'H`opital married her
for her riches. After the Marechal's death, Casimir, the
abdicated King of Poland, who was retired into
France, fell in love with the Marechale, and privately married
her. If the event ever happens, I shall certainly travel to
Nancy, to hear her talk of ma belle-fille la Reine de France.
What pains my lady Pomfret would take to prove(118) that an
abdicated King's wife did not take place of an English
countess; and how the Princess herself would grow still fonder
of the Pretender(119) for the similitude of his fortune with
that of le Roi mon mari! Her daughter, Mirepoix, was frightened
the other night, with Mrs. Nugent's calling out, un voleur! un
voleur! The ambassadress had heard so much of robbing, that
she did not doubt but dans ce pais cy, they robbed in the
middle of an assembly. It turned out to be a thief in the
candle! Good night!
(115) Dryden's All for Love."
(116) The Princess Craon, who, it had been reported, was to
marry Stanislaus Leczinsky, Duke of Loraine and ex-King of
Poland, whose daughter Maria Leczinska was married to Louis the
Fifteenth, King of France.-D.
(117) "This is the story of a woman named Mary Mignot. She was
near marrying a young man of La Gardie, who afterwards entered
the Swedish service, and became a field-marshal in that
country. Her first husband was, if I mistake not, a Procureur
of Grenoble; her second was the Marshal de l'H`opital; and her
third is supposed to have been Casimir, the ex-King of Poland,
who had retired, after his abdication, to the monastery of St
Germain des Pr`es. It does not, however, appear certain
whether Casimir actually married her or not.-D.
(118) Lady Pomfret and Princess Craon did not visit at
Florence, upon a dispute of precedence.
(119) The Pretender, when in Lorraine, lived in Prince Craon's
house.
60 Letter 22
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, April 2, 1750.
You will not wonder so much at our earthquakes as at the
effects they have had. All the women in town have taken them
up upon the foot of Judgments; and the clergy, who have had no
windfalls of a long season, have driven horse and foot into
this opinion. There has been a shower of sermons and
exhortations; Secker, the jesuitical Bishop of Oxford, began
the mode. He heard the women were all going out of town to
avoid the next shock; and so: for fear of losing his Easter
offerings, he set himself to advise them to await God's good
pleasure in fear and trembling. But what is more astonishing,
Sherlock,(120) who has much better sense, and much less of the
Popish confessor has been running a race with him for the old
ladies, and has written a pastoral letter, of which ten
thousand were sold in two days; and fifty thousand have been
subscribed for, since the two first editions.
I told you the women talked of going out of town: several
families are literally gone, and many more going to-day and
to-morrow; for what adds to the absurdity, is, that the second
shock having happened exactly a month after the former, it
prevails that there will be a third on Thursday next, another
month, which is to swallow up London. I am almost ready to
burn my letter now I have begun it, lest you should think I am
laughing at you: but it is so true, that Arthur of White's told
me last night, that he should put off the last ridotto, which
was to be on Thursday, because he hears nobody would come to
it. I have advised several who are going to keep their next
earthquake in the country, to take the bark for it, as it is so
periodic.(121) Dick Leveson and Mr. Rigby, who had supped and
strived late at Bedford House the other night, knocked at several
doors, and in a watchman's voice cried, "Past four o'clock, and a
dreadful earthquake!" But I have done with this ridiculous
panic: two pages were too much to talk of it.
We have had nothing in Parliament but trade-bills, on one of
which the Speaker humbled the arrogance of Sir John Barnard,
who had reflected upon the proceedings of the House. It is to
break up on Thursday Se'nnight, and the King goes this day
fortnight. He has made Lord Vere Beauclerc a baron,(122) at
the solicitation of the Pelhams, as this Lord had resigned upon
a pique with Lord Sandwich. Lord Anson, who is treading in the
same path, and leaving the Bedfords to follow his
father-in-law, the Chancellor, is made a privy councillor, with
Sir Thomas Robinson and Lord Hyndford. Lord Conway is to be an
earl,(123) and Sir John Rawdon(124) (whose follies you
remember, and whose boasted loyalty of having been kicked
downstairs for not drinking the Pretender's health, though even
that was false, is at last rewarded,) and Sir John Vesey are to
be Irish lords; and a Sir William Beauchamp Proctor, and a Mr.
Loyd, Knights of the Bath.
I was entertained the other night at the house of much such a
creature as Sir John Rawdon, and one whom you remember too,
Naylor. he has a wife who keeps the most indecent house of all
those that are called decent: every Sunday she has a contraband
assembly: I had had a card for Monday a fortnight before. As
the day was new, I expected a great assembly, but found scarce
six persons. I asked where the company was--I was answered,
"Oh! they are not come yet: they will be here presently; they
all supped here last night, stayed till morning, and I suppose
are not up yet."
My Lord Bolinbroke has lost his wife. When she was dying, he
acted grief; flung himself upon her bed, and asked her if she
could forgive him. I never saw her, but have heard her wit and
parts excessively commended.(125) Dr. Middleton told me a
compliment she made him two years ago, which I thought pretty.
She said she was persuaded that he was a very great writer, for
she understood his works better than any other English book, and
that she had observed that the best writers were always the most
intelligible.
Wednesday.
I had not time to finish my letter on Monday. I return to the
earthquake, which I had mistaken; it is to be to-day. This
frantic terror is so much, that within these three days seven
hundred and thirty coaches have been counted passing Hyde Park
corner, with whole parties removing into the country. Here is
a good advertisement which I cut out of the papers to-day;
"On Monday next will be published (price 6d.) A true and exact
List of all the Nobility and Gentry who have left, or shall
leave, this place through fear of another Earthquake."
Several women have made earthquake gowns; that is, warm gowns
to sit out of doors all to-night. These are of the more
courageous. One woman, still more heroic, is come to town on
purpose: she says, all her friends are in London, and she will
not survive them. But what will you think of Lady Catherine
Pelham, Lady Frances Arundel,(126) and Lord and Lady
Galway,(127) who go this evening to an inn ten miles out of
town, where they are to play at brag till five in the morning,
and then come back-I suppose, to look for the bones of their
husbands and families under the rubbish.(128) The prophet of
all this (next to the Bishop of London) is a trooper of Lord
Delawar's who was yesterday sent to Bedlam. His colonel sent
to the man's wife, and asked her if her husband had ever been
disordered before. She cried, "Oh dear! my lord, he is not mad
now; if your lordship would but get any sensible man to examine
him, you would find, he is quite in his right mind."
I shall now tell you something more serious: Lord Dalkeith(129)
is dead of the small-pox in three days. It is so dreadfully
fatal in his family, that besides several uncles and aunts, his
eldest boy died of it last year; and his only brother, who was
ill but two days, putrefied so fast that his limbs fell off as
they lifted the body into the coffin. Lady Dalkeith is five
months gone with child; she was hurrying to him, but was
stopped on the road by the physician, who told her that it was
a miliary fever. They were remarkably happy.
The King goes on Monday se'nnight;(130) it is looked upon as a
great event that the Duke of Newcastle has prevailed on him to
speak to Mr. Pitt, who has detached himself from the Bedfords.
The Monarch, who had kept up his Hanoverian resentments, though
he had made him paymaster, is now beat out of the dignity of
his silence: he was to pretend not to know Pitt, and was to be
directed to him by the lord in waiting. Pitt's jealousy is of
Lord Sandwich, who knows his own interest and unpopularity so
well, that he will prevent any breach, and thereby what you
fear, which yet I think you would have no reason to fear. I
could not say enough of my anger to your father, but I shall
take care to say nothing, as I have not forgot how my zeal for
you made me provoke him once before.
Your genealogical affair Is in great train, and will be quite
finished in a week or two. Mr. Chute has laboured at it
indefatigably: General Guise has been attesting the
authenticity of it to-day before a justice of peace. You will
find yourself mixed with every drop of blood in England that is
worth bottling up-. the Duchess of Norfolk and you grow on the
same bough of the tree. I must tell you a very curious
anecdote that Strawberry King-at-Arms(131) has discovered by
the way, as he was tumbling over the mighty dead in the
Heralds' office. You have heard me speak of the great
injustice that the Protector Somerset did to the children of
his first wife, in favour of those by his second; so much, that
he not only had the dukedom settled on the younger brood, but
to deprive the eldest of the title of Lord Beauchamp, which he
wore by inheritance, he caused himself to be anew created
Viscount Beauchamp. Well, in Vincent's Baronage, a book of
great authority, speaking of the Protector's wives, are these
remarkable words: "Katherina, filia et una Coh. Gul: Fillol de
Fillol's hall in Essex, uxor prima; repudiata, quia Pater ejus
post nuptias eam cognovit." The Speaker has since referred me
to our journals, where are some notes of a trial in the reign
of James the First, between Edward, the second son of Katherine
the dutiful, and the Earl of Hertford, son of Anne Stanhope,
which in some measure confirms our MS; for it says, the Earl of
Hertford objected, that John, the eldest son of all, was
begotten while the Duke was in France. This title, which now
comes back at last to Sir Edward Seymour is disputed: my Lord
Chancellor has refused him the writ, but referred his case to
the Attorney General,(132) the present great Opinion of
England, who, they say, is clear for Sir Edward's
succession.(133)
I shall now go and show you Mr. Chute in a different light from
heraldry, and in one in which I believe you never saw him. He
will shine as usual; but, as a little more severely than his
good-nature is accustomed to, I must tell you that he was
provoked by the most impertinent usage. It is an epigram on
Lady Caroline Petersham, whose present fame, by the way, is
coupled with young Harry Vane.