280 Letter 152
To Richard Bentley, Esq.
Arlington Street, Sept. 30, 1755.
Solomon says somewhere or other, I think it is in
Castelnuovo's edition--is not there such a one?--that the
infatuation of a nation for a foolish minister is like that of
a lover for an ugly woman: when once he opens his eyes, he
wonders what the devil bewitched him. This is the text to the
present sermon in politics, which I shall not divide under
three heads, but tell you at once, that no minister was ever
nearer the precipice than ours has been. I did tell you, I
believe, that Legge had refused to sign the warrant for the
Hessian subsidy: in short, he heartily resented the quick
coldness that followed his exaltation, waited for an
opportunity of revenge, found this; and, to be sure, no
vengeance ever took speedier strides. All the world revolted
against subsidiary treaties; nobody was left to defend them
but Murray, and he did not care to venture. Offers of
graciousness, of cabinet councillor, or chancellor of the
exchequer, were made to right and left. Dr. Lee was
conscientious; Mr. Pitt might be brought, in compliment to his
Majesty, to digest one--but a system of subsidies--impossible!
In short, the very first ministership was offered to be made
over to my Lord Granville. He begged to be excused--he was not
fit for it. Well, you laugh--all this is fact. At last we
were forced to strike sail to Mr. Fox he is named for
secretary of state, with not only the lead, but the power of
the House of Commons. You ask, in the room of which
secretary? What signifies of which? Why, I think, of Sir
Thomas Robinson, who returns to his wardrobe; and Lord
Barrington comes into the war-office. This is the present
state of things in this grave reasonable island: the union hug
like two cats over a string; the rest are arming for
opposition. But I Will not promise you any more warlike
winters; I remember how soon the campaign of the list was
addled.
In Ireland, Mr. Conway has pacified all things: the Irish are
to get as drunk as ever to the glorious and immortal memory of
King George, and the prerogative is to be exalted as high as
ever, by being obliged to give up the Primate. There! I think
I have told you volumes: yet I know you will not be content,
you will want to know something of the war, and of America;
but, I assure you, it is not the bon-ton to talk of either
this week. We think not of the former, and of the latter we
should think to very little purpose '. for we have not heard a
syllable more; Braddock's defeat still remains in the
situation of the longest battle that ever was fought with
nobody. Content your English spirit with knowing that there
are very near three thousand French prisoners in England,
taken out of several ships.
281 Letter 153
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Oct. 7, 1755.
My dear sir,
Nobody living feels more for you than I do: nobody knows
better either the goodness and tenderness of your heart, or
the real value of the person you have lost.' I cannot flatter
myself that any thing I could say would comfort you under an
affliction so well founded; but I should have set out, and
endeavoured to share your concern, if Mrs. Trevor had not told
me that you were going into Cheshire. I will only say, that
if you think change of place can contribute at all to divert
your melancholy, you know where you would be most welcome; and
whenever you will come to Strawberry Hill, you will, at least,
if you do not find a comforter, find a most sincere friend
that pities your distress, and would do any thing upon earth
to alleviate your misfortune. If you can listen yet to any
advice, let me recommend to you to give up all thoughts of
Greatworth; you will never be able to support life there any
more: let me look out for some little box for you in my
neighbourhood. You can live nowhere where you will be more
beloved; and you will there always have it in your power to
enjoy company Or solitude, as you like. I have long wished to
get you so far back into the world, and now it is become
absolutely necessary for your health and peace. I will say no
more, lest too long a letter should be either troublesome or
make you think it necessary to answer; but do not, till you
find it more agreeable to vent your grief this way than in any
other. I am, my good Sir, with hearty concern and affection,
yours most sincerely.
(619) His sister, Miss Harriet Montagu.
281 Letter 154
To Richard Bentley, Esq.
Arlington Street, Oct. 19, 1755.
Do you love royal quarrels? You may be served-I know you
don't love an invasion-nay, that even passes my taste; it will
make too much party. In short, the lady dowager Prudence
begins to step a little over the threshold of that discretion
which she has always hitherto so sanctimoniously observed.
She is suspected of strange whims; so strange, as neither to
like more German subsidies or more German matches. A strong
faction, professedly against the treaties,(620) openly against
Mr. Fox, and covertly under the banners of the aforesaid lady
Prudence, arm from all quarters against the opening of the
session. Her ladyship's eldest boy declares violently against
being bewulfenbuttled,(621) a word which I don't pretend to
understand, as it is not in Mr. Johnson's new dictionary.
There! now I have been as enigmatic as ever I have accused you
of being; and hoping you will not be able to expound my German
hieroglyphics, I proceed to tell you in plain English that we
are going to be invaded. I have within this day or two seen
grandees of ten, twenty, and thirty thousand pounds a-year,
who are in a mortal fright; consequently, it would be
impertinent in much less folk to tremble, and accordingly they
don't. At court there is no doubt but an attempt will be made
before Christmas. I find valour is like virtue: impregnable
as they boast themselves, it is discovered that on the first
attack both lie strangely open! They are raising more men,
camps are to be formed in Kent and Sussex, the Duke of
Newcastle is frightened out of his wits, which, though he has
lost so often, you know he always recovers, and as fresh as
ever. Lord Egmont despairs of the commonwealth; and I am
going to fortify my castle of Strawberry, according to an old
charter I should have had for embattling and making a deep
ditch. But here am I laughing when I really ought to cry,
both with my public eye and my private one. I have told you
what I think ought to sluice my public eye; and your private
eye too will moisten, when I tell you that poor Miss Harriet
Montagu is dead. She died about a fortnight ago; but having
nothing else to tell you, I would not send a letter so far
with only such melancholy news-and so, you will say, I stayed
till I could tell still more bad news. The truth is, I have
for some time had two letters of yours to answer: it is three
weeks since I wrote to you, and one begins to doubt whether
one shall ever be to write again. I will hope all my best
hopes; for I have no sort of intention at this time of day of
finishing either as a martyr or a hero. I rather intend to
live and record both those professions, if need be; and I have
no inclination to scuttle barefoot after a Duke of
Wolfenbuttle's army as Philip de Comines says he saw their
graces of Exeter and Somerset trudge after the Duke of
Burgundy's. The invasion, though not much in fashion yet,
begins, like Moses's rod, to swallow other news, both
political and suicidical. Our politics I have sketched out to
you, and can only add, that Mr. Fox's ministry does not as yet
promise to be of long duration. When it was first thought
that he had cot the better of the Duke of Newcastle, Charles
Townshend said admirably, that he was sure the Duchess, like
the old Cavaliers, would make a vow not to shave her beard
till the restoration.
I can't recollect the least morsel of a fess or chevron of the
Boynets: they did not happen to enter into any extinct
genealogy for whose welfare I interest myself. I sent your
letter to Mr. Chute, who is still under his own vine: Mr.
Muntz is still with him, recovering of a violent fever.
Adieu! If memoirs don't grow too memorable, I think this
season will produce a large crop.
P. S. I believe I scarce ever mentioned to you last Winter the
follies of the Opera: the impertinences of a great singer were
too old and common a topic. I must mention them now, when
they rise to any improvement in the character Of national
folly. The Mingotti, a noble figure, a great mistress of
music, and a most incomparable actress, surpassed any thing I
ever saw for the extravagance of her humours.(622) She never
sung above one night in three, from a fever upon hot-temper:
and never would act at all when Ricciarelli, the first man,
was to be in dialogue with her.(623) Her fevers grow so high,
that the audience caught them, and hissed her more than once:
she herself once turned and hissed again--Tit pro tat geminat
phoy d'achamiesmeyn--among the treaties which a secretary of
state has negotiated this summer, he has contracted for a
succedaneum to the Mingotti. In short, there is a woman hired
to sing when the other shall be- out of humour!
Here is a "World" by Lord Chesterfield:(624) the first part is
very pretty, till it runs into witticism. I have marked the
passages I particularly like.
You would not draw Henry IV. at a siege for me: pray don't
draw Louis XV.(625
(620) Lord Chesterfield, in a letter to Mr. Dayrolles, of the
4th of this month, says, "the next which now draws very near,
will, I believe, be a very troublesome one; and I really think
it very doubtful whether the subsidiary treaties with Russia
and Cassel will be carried or not. To be sure, much may be
said against both; but yet I dread the consequences of
rejecting them by Parliament, since they are made."-E.
(621) This is an allusion to a contemplated marriage between
the Prince of Wales, afterwards George the Third, and a
daughter of the Duke of Brunswick Wolfenbuttle. The following
is Lord Waldegrave's account of this project:--"An event
happened about the middle of the summer, which engaged
Leicester House still deeper in faction than they at first
intended. The Prince of Wales was just entering into his
eighteenth year; and being of a modest, sober disposition,
with a healthy, vigorous constitution, it might reasonably be
supposed that a matrimonial companion might be no unacceptable
amusement. The Duchess of Brunswick Wolfenbuttle, with her
two unmarried daughters, waited on his Majesty at Hanover.
The older, both as to person and understanding, was a most
accomplished Princess: the King was charmed with her cheerful,
modest, and sensible behaviour, and wished to make her his
granddaughter, being too old to make her his wife. I remember
his telling me, with great eagerness, that had he been only
twenty years younger, she would never have been refused by a
Prince of Wales, but should at once have been Queen of
England. Now, whether his Majesty spoke seriously is very
little to the purpose; his grandson's happiness was
undoubtedly his principal object; and he was desirous the
match might be concluded before his own death, that the
Princess of Wales should have no temptation to do a Job for
her relations, by marrying her son to one of the Saxe Gotha
family, who might not have the amiable accomplishments of the
Princess of Wolfenbuttle. The King's intentions, it may
easily be imagined, were not agreeable to the Princess of
Wales. She knew the temper of the Prince her son; that he was
by nature indolent, hated business, but loved a domestic life,
and would make an excellent husband. She knew also that the
young Princess, having merit and understanding equal to her
beauty, must in a short time have the greatest influence over
him. In which circumstances, it may naturally be concluded
that her Royal Highness did every thing in her Power to
prevent the match. The Prince of Wales was taught to
believe that he was to be made a sacrifice merely to gratify the
King's private interest in the electorate of Hanover. The
young Princess was most cruelly misrepresented; many even of
her perfections were aggravated into faults; his Royal
Highness implicitly believing every idle tale and improbable
assertion, till his prejudice against her amounted to aversion
itself." Memoirs, p. 39.-E.
(622) The following is Dr. Burney's account:--"Upon the
success of Jomelli's 'Andromaca' a damp was thrown by the
indisposition of Mingotti, during which Frasi was called upon
to play her part in that opera; when suspicion arising, that
Mingotti's was a mere dramatic and political cold, the public
was much out of humour, till she resumed her function in
Metastasio's admirable drama of 'Demofoonte,' in which she
acquired more applause, and augmented her theatrical
consequence beyond any period of her performance in
England."-E.
(623) "Ricciarelli was a neat and pleasing performer, with a
clear, flexible, and silver-toned voice; but so much inferior
to Mingotti, both in singing and acting, that he was never in
very high favour." Burney.-E.
(624) No. 146, Advice to the Ladies on their return to the
country.-E.
(625) Alluding to the subject Mr. Walpole had proposed to him
for a picture, in the letter of the 15th of August (letter
143), and to the then expected invasion of' England by Louis
XV.
284 Letter 155
To John Chute, Esq.(626)
Arlington Street, October 20, 1755.
You know, my dear Sir, that I do not love to have you taken
unprepared: the last visit I announced to you was of the Lord
Dacre of the South and of the Lady Baroness, his spouse: the
next company you may expect will be composed of the Prince of
Soubise and twelve thousand French; though, as winter is
coming on, they will scarce stay in the country, but hasten to
London. I need not protest to you I believe, that I am
serious, and that an invasion before Christmas will certainly
be attempted; you will believe me at the first word. It is a
little hard, however! they need not envy us General Braddock's
laurels; they were not in such quantity!
Parliamentary and subsidiary politics are in great ferment. I
could tell you much if I saw you; but I will not while you
stay there--yet, as I am a true friend and not to be changed
by prosperity, I can't neglect offering YOU my services when I
am cens`e to be well with a minister. It is so long since I
was, and I believe so little a while that I shall be so,, (to
be sure, I mean that he will be minister,) that I must faire
valoir my interest, while I have any-in short, shall I get you
one of these new independent companies ?-Hush! don't tell Mr.
Muntz how powerful I am: his warlike spirit will want to
coincide with my ministerial one; and it would be very
inconvenient to the Lords Castlecomers to have him knocked on
the head before he had finished all the strawberries and vines
that we lust after.
I had a note from Gray, who is still at Stoke; and he desired
I would tell you, that he has continued pretty well. Do come.
Adieu!
Lottery tickets rise: subsidiary treaties under par--I don't
say, no price. Lord Robert Bertie, with a
company of the Guards, has thrown himself
into Dover castle; don't they sound very war-full?
(626) Now first printed.
285 Letter 156
To Sir Horace Mann.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 27, 1755.
When the newspapers swarm with our military preparations at
home, with encampments, fire-ships, floating castles at the
mouths of the great rivers, etc. in short, when we expect an
invasion, you would chide, or be disposed to chide me, if I
were quite silent-and yet, what can I tell you more than that
an invasion is threatened? that sixteen thousand men are
about Dunkirk, and that they are assembling great quantities
of flat-bottomed boats! Perhaps they will attempt some
landing; they are certainly full of resentment; they broke the
peace, took our forts and built others on our boundaries; we
did not bear it patiently; we retook two forts, attacked or
have been going to attack others, and have taken vast numbers
of their ships: this is the state of the provocation--what is
more provoking, for once we have not sent twenty or thirty
thousand men to Flanders on whom they might vent their
revenge. Well! then they must come here, and perhaps invite
the Pretender to be of the party; not in a very popular light
for him, to be brought by the French in revenge of a national
war. You will ask me, if we are alarmed? the people not at
all so: a minister or two, who are subject to alarms, are--and
that is no bad circumstances We are as much an island as ever,
and I think a much less exposed one than we have been for many
years. Our fleet is vast; our army at home, and ready, and
two-thirds stronger than when we were threatened in 1744; the
season has been the wettest that ever has been known,
consequently the roads not very invade-able: and there is the
additional little circumstance of the late rebellion defeated;
I believe I may reckon too, Marshal Saxe dead. You see our
situation is not desperate: in short, we escaped in '44, and
when the rebels were at Derby in '45; we must have bad luck
indeed, if we fall now.
Our Parliament meets in a fortnight; if no French come, our
campaign there will be warm; nay, and uncommon, the opposition
will be chiefly composed of men in place. You know we always
refine; it used to be an imputation on our senators, that they
opposed to get places. They now oppose to get better places!
We are a comical nation (I Speak with all due regard to our
gravity!)-It were a pity we should be destroyed, if it were
only for the sake of posterity; we shall not be half so droll,
if we are either a province to France, or under an absolute
prince of our own.
I am sorry you are losing my Lord Cork; you must balance the
loss with that of Miss Pitt,(627) who is a dangerous inmate.
You ask me if I have seen Lord Northumberland's Triumph of
Bacchus;(628) I have not: you know I never approved the
thought of those copies and have adjourned my curiosity till
the gallery is thrown open with the first masquerade. Adieu!
my dear Sir.
(627) Elizabeth Pitt, sister of Lord Chatham@ She had been
maid of honour to Augusta Princess of Wales; then lived openly
with Lord Talbot as his mistress; went to Italy, turned
Catholic, and married; came back, wrote against her brother,
and a trifling pamphlet recommending magazines of corn, and
called herself Clara Villiers Pitt.
(628) Hugh, Earl and afterwards Duke of Northumberland,
bespoke at a great price five copies of capital pictures in
Italy, by Mentz, Pompeo, Battoni, etc. for his gallery at
Northumberland House.
286 Letter 157
To Richard Bentley, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, October 31, 1755.
As the invasion is not ready, we are forced to take up with a
victory. An account came yesterday, that General Johnson(629)
had defeated the French near the lake St. Sacrement, had
killed one thousand, and taken the lieutenant-general who
commanded them prisoner! his name is Dieskau, a Saxon, an
esteemed `el`eve of Marshal Saxe. By the printed account,
which I enclose, Johnson showed great generalship and bravery.
As the whole business was done by irregulars, it does not
lessen the faults of Braddock, and the panic of his troops.
If I were so disposed, I could conceive that there are heroes
in the world who are not quite pleased with this extra-
martinette success(630)--but we won't blame those Alexanders,
till they have beaten the French in Kent! You know it will be
time enough to abuse them, when they have done all the service
they can! The other enclosed paper is another World,(631) by
my Lord Chesterfield; not so pretty, I think, as the last; yet
it has merit. While England and France are at war, and Mr.
Fox and Mr. Pitt going to war, his lordship is coolly amusing
himself at picquet at Bath with a Moravian baron, who would be
in prison, if his creditors did not occasionally release him
to play with and cheat my Lord Chesterfield, as the only
chance they have for recovering their- money!
We expect the Parliament to be thronged., and great
animosities. I will not send you one of the eggs that are
laid; for so many political ones have been addled of late
years, that I believe all the state game-cocks in the world
are impotent.
I did not doubt but u would be struck with the death of poor
Bland.(632) I, t'other night, at White's, found a very
remarkable entry in our very-very remarkable wager-book: "Lord
Mountford(633) bets Sir John Bland twenty guineas that Nash
outlives Cibbor!" How odd that these two old creatures,
selected for their antiquities, should live to see both their
wagerers put an end to their own lives! Cibber is within a few
days of eighty-four, still hearty, and clear, and well. I
told him I was glad to see him look so well: "Faith," said he,
"it is very well that I look at all!"--I shall thank you for
the Ormer shells and roots; and shall desire your permission
to finish my letter already. As the Parliament is to meet so
soon, you are likely to be overpowered with my despatches.--I
have been thinning my wood of trees and planting them out more
into the field: I am fitting up the old kitchen for a
china-room: I am building a bedchamber for my self over the
old blue-room, in which I intend to die, though not yet; and
some trifles of this kind, which I do not specify to you,
because I intend to reserve a little to be quite new to you.
Adieu!
(629) In the Following month created Sir William Johnson,
Bart. Parliament was so satisfied with his conduct on this
occasion, that it voted him the sum of 5000 pounds. He
afterwards distinguished himself as a negotiator with the
Indian tribes, and was ultimately chosen colonel of the Six
Nations, and superintendent of Indian affairs for the northern
parts of America. He became well acquainted with the manners
and language of the Indians, and in 1772, sent to the Royal
Society some valuable communications relative to them. He
died in 1774.-E.
(630) Alluding to the Duke of Cumberland.
(631) No. 148, On Civility and Good-breeding.-E.
(632) Sir John Bland, member for Luggershall. The event took
place on the road between Calais and Paris.-E.
(633) Lord Mountford would have been the winner. Colley
Cibber died in 1757: Beau Nash survived till 1761. A very
entertaining Memoir of the King of Bath will be found in Mr.
Murray's enlarged and elegant edition of Goldsmith's
Miscellaneous Works. It is matter of surprise, that so many
pieces, from the pen of the delightful author of the Vicar of
Wakefield, should have so long remained uncollected.-E.
287 Letter 158
To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Nov. 8, 1755.
My dear sir,
You oblige me extremely by giving me this commission; and
though I am exceedingly unlike Solomon in every thing else, I
will at least resemble him in remembering you to the Hiram
from whom I obtained my cedars of libanus. He is by men
called Christopher Gray, nurseryman at Fulham. I mention
cedars first, because they are the most beautiful of the
evergreen race, and because they are the dearest; half a
guinea apiece in baskets. The arbutus are scarce a crown
apiece, but they are very beautiful: the lignumvitae I would
not recommend to you; they stink abominably if you touch them,
and never make a handsome tree: The Chinese arborvitae is very
beautiful. I have a small nursery myself, scarce bigger than
one of those pleasant gardens which Solomon describes, and
which if his fair one meant the church, I suppose must have
meant the churchyard. Well, out of this little parsley-bed of
mine, I can furnish you with a few plants, particularly three
Chinese arborvitaes, a dozen of the New England or Lord
Weymouth's pine, which is that beautiful tree that we have so
much admired at the Duke of Argyle's for its clean straight
stem, the lightness of its hairy green, and for being
feathered quite to the ground: they should stand in a moist
soil, and Care must be taken every year to clear away all
plants and trees round them, that they may have free air and
room to expand themselves. Besides these' I shall send you
twelve stone or Italian pine, twelve pinasters, twelve black
spruce firs, two Caroline cherries, thirty evergreen cytisus,
a pretty shrub that grows very fast, and may be cut down as
you please, fifty Spanish brooms, and six acacias, the
genteelest tree of all, but you must take care to plant them
in a first row, and where they will be well sheltered, for the
least wind tears and breaks them to pieces. All these are
ready, whenever you will give me directions, how and where to
send them. They are exceedingly small, as I have but lately
taken to propagate myself; but then they will travel more
safely, will be more sure of living, and will grow faster than
larger. Other sorts Of trees that you must have, are silver
and Scotch firs; Virginia cedars, which should stand forwards
and have nothing touch them; and above all cypresses, which, I
think, are my chief passion; there is nothing So picturesque,
where they Stand two or three in a clump, upon a little
hillock, or rising above low shrubs, and particularly near
buildings. There is another bit of picture, of which I am
fond, and that is a larch or a spruce fir planted behind a
weeping willow, and shooting upwards as the willow depends. I
think for courts about a house, or winter gardens, almond
trees mixed with evergreens, particularly with Scotch firs,
have a pretty effect, before any thing else comes out; whereas
almond trees being generally planted among other trees, and
being in bloom before other trees have leaves, have no ground
to show the beauty of their blossoms. Gray at Fulham sells
cypresses in pots at half a crown apiece; you turn them out of
the pot with all their mould, and they never fall. I think
this is all you mean; if you have anymore garden-questions or
commissions, you know you command my little knowledge.
I am grieved that you have still any complaints left.
Dissipation, in my opinion, will be the best receipt; and I do
not speak merely for my own sake, when I tell you, how much I
wish to have you keep your resolution of coming to town before
Christmas. I am still more pleased with the promise you make
to Strawberry, which you have never seen in its green coat
since it cut its teeth. I am here all alone, and shall stay
till Tuesday, the day after the birthday. On Thursday begins
our warfare, and if we may believe signs and tokens, our
winter will be warlike-. I mean at home; I have not much
faith in the invasion. Her Royal Highness and His Royal
Highness(634) are likely to come to an open rupture. His
grace of Newcastle, who, I think, has gone under every
nickname, waits, I believe to see to which he will cling.
There have been two Worlds by my Lord Chesterfield lately,
very pretty, the rest very indifferent.
(634) The Princess Dowager and the Duke of Cumberland.
289 Letter 159
To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington street, Nov. 15, 1755.
I promised you histories, and there are many people that take
care I should have it in my power to keep my word. To begin
in order, I should tell you that there were 289 members at the
Cockpit meeting, the greatest number ever known there: but Mr.
Pitt, who is too great a general to regard numbers, especially
when there was a probability of no great harmony between the
commanders, did not, however, postpone giving battle. The
engagement was not more decisive than long: we sat till within
a quarter of five in the morning; an uninterrupted serious
debate from before two. Lord Hillsborough moved the address,
and very injudiciously supposed an opposition. Martin,
Legge's secretary, moved to omit in the address the indirect
approbation of the treaties, and the direct assurances of
protection to Hanover. These questions were at length
divided: and against Pitt's inclination, the last, which was
the least unpopular, was first decided by a majority of 311
against 105. Many then went away; and on the next division
the numbers were 290 to 89. These are the general outlines.
The detail of the speeches, which were very long, and some
extremely fine, it would be impossible to give you in any
compass. On the side of the opposition, (which I must tell
you by the way, though it set out decently, seems extremely
resolved) the speakers (I name them in their order) were: the
3d Colebrook, Martin, Northey, Sir Richard Lyttelton,
Doddington, George Grenville, Sir F. Dashwood, Beckford, Sir
G. Lee, Legge, Potter, Dr. Hay, George Townshend, Lord Egmont,
Pitt, and Admiral Vernon on the other side were, Lord
Hillsborough, Obrien, young Stanhope,(635) Hamilton, Alstone,
Ellis, Lord Barrington, Sir G. Lyttelton, Nugent, Murray, Sir
T. Robinson, my uncle, and Mr. Fox. As short as I can, I will
give you an account of them. Sir Richard, Beckford, Potter,
G. Townshend, the Admiral of course, Martin, Stanhope, and
Ellis, were very bad: Doddington was well, but very acceding:
Dr. Hay by no means answers his reputation; it was easy but
not striking. Lord Egmont was doubting, absurd, and obscure.
Sir G. Lee and Lord Barrington were much disliked; I don't
think so deservedly. Poor Alstone was mad, and spoke ten
times to order. Sir George(636) our friend, was dull and
timid. Legge was the latter. Nugent roared, and Sir Thomas
rumbled. My uncle did justice to himself, and was as wretched
and dirty as his whole behaviour for his coronet has been.
Mr. Fox was extremely fatigued, and did little. Geo.
Grenville's was very fine and much beyond himself, and very
pathetic. The Attorney-general(637) in the same style, and
very artful, was still finer. Then there was a young Mr.
Hamilton,(638) who spoke for the first time, and was at Once
perfection: his speech set, and full of antithesis, but those
antitheses were full of argument: indeed his speech was the
most argumentative of the whole day; and he broke through the
regularity of his own composition, answered other people, and
fell into his own track again with the greatest ease. His
figure is advantageous, his voice strong and clear, his manner
spirited, and the whole with the ease of an established
speaker. You will ask, what could be beyond this? Nothing,
but what was beyond what ever was, and that was Pitt! He spoke
at past one, for an hour and thirty-five minutes: there was
more humour, wit, vivacity, finer language, more boldness, in
short, more astonishing perfections, than even you who are
used to him, can conceive. He was not abusive, yet very
attacking on all sides: he ridiculed my Lord Hillsborough,
crushed poor Sir George, terrified the Attorney, lashed my
Lord Granville, painted my Lord of Newcastle, attacked Mr.
Fox, and even hinted up to the Duke.(639) A few of the Scotch
were in the minority, and most of the Princess's people, not
all: all the Duke of Bedford's in the majority. He himself
spoke in the other House for the address (though professing
incertainty about the treaties themselves), against my Lord
Temple and Lord Halifax, without a division. My Lord Talbot
was neuter; he and I were of a party: my opinion was strongly
with the opposition; I could not vote for the treaties; I
would not vote against Mr. Fox. It is ridiculous perhaps, at
the end of such a debate, to give an account of my own
silence; and as it is of very little consequence what I did,
so it is very unlike me to justify myself. You know how much
I hate professions of integrity; and my pride is generally too
great to care what the generality of people say of me: but
your heart is good enough to make me wish you should think
well of mine.
You will want to know what is to be the fate of the ministry
in opposition: but that I can't tell you. I don't believe
they have determined what to do, more than oppose, nor that it
is determined what to do with them. Though it is clear that
it is very humiliating to leave them in place, you may
conceive several reasons why it is not eligible to dismiss
them. You know where you are, how easy it is to buy an
opposition who have not places; but tell us what to do with an
opposition that has places? If you say, Turn them out; I
answer, That is not the way to quiet any opposition, or a
ministry so constituted as ours at present. Adieu!
(635) Son of the Earl of Chesterfield; who upon this occasion
addressed the House for the first time. "His father," says
Dr. Maty, "took infinite pains to prepare him for his first
appearance as a speaker. The young man seems to have
succeeded tolerably well upon the whole, but on account of his
shyness was obliged to stop, and, if I am not mistaken, to
have recourse to his notes. Lord Chesterfield used every
argument in his power to comfort him, and to inspire him with
confidence and courage to make some other attempt; but I have
not heard that Mr. Stanhope ever spoke again in the House."-
E.
(636) Sir George Lyttelton.
(637) William Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield.
(638) William Gerard Hamilton. It was this speech which, not
being followed, as was naturally expected, by repeated
exhibitions of similar eloquence, acquired for him the name of
single-speech Hamilton.
(639) The Duke of Cumberland.
291 Letter 160
To Richard Bentley, Esq.
Arlington Street, November 16, 1755.
Never was poor invulnerable Immortality so soon brought to
shame! Alack! I have had the gout! would fain have persuaded
myself that it was a sprain: and, then, that it was only the
gout come to look for Mr. Chute at Strawberry Hill: but none
of my evasions will do! I was, certainly, lame for two days;
and though I repelled it--first, by getting wet-shod, and then
by spirits of camphor; and though I have since tamed it more
rationally by leaving off the little wine I drank, I still
know where to look for it whenever I have an occasion for a
political illness. Come, my constitution is not very much
broken, when, in four days after such a mortifying attack, I
could sit in the House of Commons, full as possible, from two
at noon till past five in the morning, as we did but last
Thursday. The new opposition attacked the address. Who are
the new opposition? Why, the old opposition-- Pitt and the
Grenvilles; indeed, with Legge instead of Sir George
Lyttelton. Judge how entertaining it was to me to hear
Lyttelton answer Grenville, and Pitt Lyttelton! The debate,
long and uninterrupted as it was, was a great deal of it
extremely fine: the numbers did not answer to the merit: the
new friends, the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Fox, had 311 to
105. The bon-mot in fashion is, that the staff was very good,
but they wanted private Men. Pitt surpassed himself, and then
I need not tell you that he surpassed Cicero and Demosthenes.
What a figure would they, with their formal, laboured, cabinet
orations, make vis-`a-vis his manly vivacity and dashing
eloquence at one o'clock in the morning, after sitting in that
heat for eleven hours! He spoke above an hour and a half, with
scarce a bad sentence: the most admired part was a comparison
he drew of the two parts of the new administration, to the
conflux of the Rhone and the Saone; "the latter a gentle,
feeble, languid stream, languid but not deep; the other a
boisterous and overbearing torrent; but they joined at last;
and long may they continue united, to the comfort of each
other, and to the glory, honour, and happiness of this
nation!" I hope you are not mean-spirited enough to dread an
invasion, when the senatorial contests are reviving in the
temple of Concord.-But will it make a party? Yes, truly: I
never saw so promising a prospect. Would not it be cruel, at
such a period, to be laid up?
I have only had a note from you to promise me a letter; but it
is not arrived:--but the partridges are, and well; and I thank
you.
England seems returning:(640) for those who are not in
Parliament, there are nightly riots at Drury-lane, where there
is an anti-Gallican party against some French dancers. The
young men of quality have protected them till last night,
when, being Opera night, the galleries were victorious.(641)
Montagu writes me many kind things for you; he is in Cheshire,
but comes to town this winter. Adieu! I have so much to say,
that I have time to say but very little.
P. S. George Selwyn hearing much talk of a sea-war or a
continent, said, , I am for a sea-war and a continent
admiral."
(640) Walpole means the disposition towards mobs and rioting
at public places, which was then common among young men, and
had been a sort of fashion in his early youth.-E.
(641) A spectacle brought out by Garrick, in the beginning of
this month, at Drury-lane gave great offence to the public, in
consequence of the number of foreigners employed in it; and,
on the sixth representation, a violent riot took place, by
which a damage to the theatre was incurred of several thousand
pounds.-E.
292 Letter 161
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Nov. 16, 1755.
I have received a letter from you of Oct. 25th, full of
expectation of the invasion I announced to you-but we have got
two new parties erected, and if you imagine that the invasion
is attended to, any more than as it is played off by both
those parties, you know little of England. The Parliament met
three days ago: we have been so un-English lately as to have
no parties at all, have now got what never was seen before, an
opposition in administration. Mr. Pitt, Mr. Legge, and their
adherents, no great number, have declared open and unrelenting
war with the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Fox; and on the
address, which hinted approbation of the late treaties, and
promised direct support of Hanover, we sat till five the next
morning. If eloquence could convince, Mr. Pitt would have had
more than 105 against 31 1; but it is long since the arts of
persuasion were artful enough to persuade-rhetoric was
invented before places and commissions! The expectation of the
world is suspended, to see whether these gentlemen will resign
or be dismissed: perhaps neither; perhaps they may continue in
place and opposition; perhaps they may continue in place and
not oppose. Bossuet wrote "L'Histoire des Variations de
l'Eglise"-I think I could make as entertaining a history,
though not so well written, "des Variations de l'Etat:"i mean
of changes and counterchanges of party. The Duke of Newcastle
thought himself undone, beat up all quarters for support, and
finds himself stronger than ever. Mr. Fox was thought SO
unpopular, that his support was thought as dangerous as want
of defence; every thing bows to him. The Tories hate both him
and Pitt so much, that they sit still to see them worry one
another; they don't seem to have yet found out that while
there are parts and ambition, they will be obliged to follow
and to hate by turns every man who has both.
I don't at all understand my Lady Orford's politics; but that
is no wonder, when I am sure she does not understand ours.
Nobody knows what to make of the French inactivity: if they
intend some great stroke, the very delay and forbearance tells
us to prepare for it, and a surprise prepared for loses much
of its value. For my own part, I have not prophetic sagacity
enough to foresee what will be even the probable event either
of our warlike or domestic politics. I desired your brother
to write you an account of General Johnson's victory; the only
great circumstance in our favour that has happened yet. The
greatest mystery of all is the conduct of Admiral Boscawen:
since he left England, though they write private letters to
their friends, he and all his officers have not sent a single
line to the Admiralty; after great pain and uncertainty about
him, a notion prevailed yesterday, how well-founded I know
not, that without any orders he is gone to attack
Louisbourgh-considering all I have mentioned, he ought to be
very sure of success. Adieu! my dear Sir, I have told you the
heads of all I know, and have not time to be more particular.
P. S. I am glad to be able to contradict an untruth, before I
send it away -. Admiral Boscawen and his fleet are arrived,
and have brought along with them a French man-of-war of
seventy-four guns.
293 Letter 162
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, November 25, 1755.
I have been so hurried since I came to town, and so enclosed
in the House of Commons, that I have not been able to write a
line sooner. I now write, to notify that your plants will set
out according to your direction next Monday, and are ordered
to be left at Namptwich.
I differ with the doctors about planting evergreens in spring;
if it happens to be wet weather, it may be better than
exposing them to a first winter: but the cold dry winds, that
generally prevail in spring, are ten times more pernicious.
In my own opinion, the end of September is the best season,
for then they shoot before the hard weather comes. But the
plants I send you are so very small, that they are equally
secure in any season, and would bear removing in the middle of
summer; a handful of dung will clothe them all for the whole
winter.
There is a most dreadful account of an earthquake in
Lisbon,(642) but several people will not believe it. There
have been lately such earthquakes and waterquakes, and rocks
rent, and other strange phenomena, that one would think the
world exceedingly out of repair. I am not prophet enough to
believe that such convulsions relate solely to the struggles
between Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox, or even portend any between the
Georges and Jameses. You have already heard, I suppose, that
Pitt, Legge, and George Grenville, are dismissed, and that Sir
George Lyttelton is chancellor of the exchequer. My Lord
Temple says that Sir George Lyttelton said he would quit his
place when they did, and that he has kept his word! The world
expects your cousin to resign; but I believe all efforts are
used to retain him. Joan, the fair maid of Saxe-Gotha, did
not speak to Mr. Fox or Sir George when they kissed her hand
last Sunday. No more places are vacated or filled up yet.
It is an age since I have heard from Mr. Bentley; the war or
the weather have interrupted all communication. Adieu! let me
know at your leisure, when one is likely to see you.
(642) The dreadful earthquake, on the 1st of November, which
laid nearly the whole city in ruins. The number of
inhabitants who lost their lives was variously reported, but
generally estimated at about ten thousand.-E.
294 Letter 163
To Sir Horace Mann.
Arlington Street, Dec. 4, 1755.
Long before you receive this, my dear Sir, you will have
learned general, if not particular accounts of the dreadful
desolation at Lisbon: the particulars indeed are not yet come
hither; all we have heard hitherto is from France, and from
Sir Benjamin Keene at Madrid. The catastrophe is greater than
ever happened even in your neighbourhood, Naples. Our share
is very considerable, and by some reckoned at four millions.
We are despatching a ship with a present of an hundred
thousand pounds in provisions and necessaries, for they want
every thing. There have been Kings of Spain who would have
profited of such a calamity; but the present MONARCH has only
acted as if he had a title to Portugal, by showing himself a
father to that people.(643)
We are settled, politically, into a regular opposition. Mr.
Pitt, Mr. Legge, and George Grenville have received their
dismissions, and oppose regularly. Sir George Lyttelton, who
last year with that connexion, is made chancellor of the
exchequer. As the subsidies are not yet voted, and as the
opposition, though weak in numbers, are very strong in
speakers, no other places will be given away till Christmas,
that the re-elections may be made in the holidays.
There are flying reports that General Johnson, our only hero
at present, has taken Crown Point, but the report is entirely
unconfirmed by any good authority. The invasion that I
announced to you, is very equivocal; there is some suspicion
that it was only called in as an ally to the subsidiary
treaties: many that come from France say, that on their coasts
they are dreading an invasion from us. Nothing is certain but
their forbearance and good breeding-the meaning of that is
very uncertain.
Shall I send away a letter with only these three paragraphs! I
must if I write at all. There are no private news at all! the
earthquake, the opposition, and the war, are the only topics;
each of those topics will be very fruitful, and you shall hear
of their offspring-at present, good night!
(643) The Spanish monarch did not long preserve that spirit of
justice.
295 Letter 164
To Richard Bentley, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 17, 1755.
After an immense interval, I have at last received a long
letter from you, of a very old date (November 5th), which
amply indemnifies my patience - nay, almost makes me amends
for your blindness; for I think, unless you had totally lost
your eyes, you would not refuse me a pleasure so easy to
yourself as now and then sending me a drawing. I can't call
it laziness; one may be too idle to amuse one's self, but sure
one is never so fond of idleness as to prefer it to the power
of obliging a person one loves! And yet I own your letter has
made me amends, the wit of your pen recompenses the stupidity
of your pencil; the caestus you have taken up supplies a
little the artem you have relinquished. I could quote twenty
passages that have charmed me: the picture of Lady Prudence
and her family; your idol that gave you hail when you prayed
for sunshine; misfortune the teacher of superstition;
unmarried people being the fashion in heaven; the Spectator-
hacked phrases; Mr. Spence's blindness to Pope's mortality;
and, above all, the criticism on the Queen in Hamlet, is most
delightful. There never was so good a ridicule of all the
formal commentators on Shakspeare, nor so artful a banter on
himself for so improperly making her Majesty deal in
double-entendres at a funeral. In short, I never heard as
much wit, except in a speech with which mr. Pitt concluded the
debate t'other day on the treaties. His antagonists endeavour
to disarm him, but as fast as they deprive him of one weapon,
he finds a better; I never suspected him of such an universal
armoury-I knew he had a Gorgon's head, composed of bayonets
and pistols, but little thought that he could tickle to death
with a feather. On the first debate on these famous treaties,
last Wednesday, Hume Campbell, whom the Duke of Newcastle had
retained as the most abusive counsel he could find against
Pitt (and hereafter perhaps against Fox), attacked the former
for eternal invectives. Oh! since the last philippic of
Billingsgate memory you never heard such an invective as Pitt
returned-Hume Campbell was annihilated! Pitt, like an angry
wasp, seems to have left his sting in the wound, and has since
assumed a style of delicate ridicule and repartee. But think
how charming a ridicule must that be that lasts and rises,
flash after flash, for an hour and a half! Some day or other,
perhaps you will see some of the glittering splinters that I
gathered up. I have written under his print these lines,
which are not only full as just as the original, but have not
the tautology of loftiness and majesty:
""Three orators in distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn;
The first in loftiness of thought surpass'd,
The next in language, but in- both the last:
The power of Nature could no farther go;
To make a third, she join'd the former two."
Indeed, we have wanted such an entertainment to enliven and
make the fatigue supportable. We sat on Wednesday till ten at
night; on Friday till past three in the morning; on Monday
till between nine and ten.(644) We have profusion of orators,
and many very great, which is surprising so soon after the
leaden age(645 of the late Right Honourable Henry
Saturnus!(646) The majorities are as great as in Saturnus's
golden age.
Our changes are begun; but not being made at once, our very
changes change. Lord Duplin and Lord Darlington are made
joint paymasters: George Selwyn says, that no act ever showed
so much the Duke of Newcastle's absolute power as his being
able to make Lord Darlington a paymaster. That so often
repatriated and reprostituted Doddington is again to be
treasurer of the navy; and he again drags out Harry Furnese
into the treasury. The Duke of Leeds is to be cofferer, and
Lord Sandwich emerges so far as to be chief justice in eyre.
The other parts by the comedians; I don't repeat their names,
because perhaps the fellow that to-day is designed to act
Guildenstern, may to-morrow be destined to play half the part
of the second grave-digger.(647) However, they are all to
kiss hands on Saturday. mr. Pitt told me to-day that he
should not go to Bath till next week. "I fancy," said I, "you
scarce stay to kiss hands."
With regard to the invasion, which you are so glad to be
allowed to fear, I must tell you that it is quite gone out of
fashion again, and I really believe was dressed up for a
vehicle (as the apothecaries call it) to make us swallow the
treaties. All along the coast of France they are much more
afraid of an invasion than we are.
As obliging as you are in sending me plants, I am determined
to thank you for nothing but drawings. I am not to be bribed
to silence, when you really disoblige me. Mr. Muntz has
ordered more cloths for you. I even shall send you books
unwillingly; and, indeed, why should I? As you are
stone-blind, what can you do with them? The few I shall send
you, for there are scarce any now, will be a pretty dialogue
by Cr`ebillon; a strange imperfect poem, written by Voltaire
when he was very young, which with some charming strokes has a
great deal of humour manqu`e and of impiety estropi`ee; and an
historical romance, by him too, of the last war, in which is
so outrageous a lying anecdote of old Marlborough, as would
have convinced her, that when poets write history they stick
as little to truth in prose as in verse. Adieu!
(644) Lord Chesterfield, in a letter to Mr. Dayrolles of the
19th, says, "The House of Commons sits three or four times a
week till nine or ten at night, and sometimes till four or
five in the morning; so attentive are they to the good of
their dear country. That zeal has of late transported them
into much personal abuse. Even our insignificant House sat
one day last week till past ten at night upon the Russian and
Hessian treaties; but I was not able to sit it out, and left
it at seven, more than half dead; for I took it into my head
to speak upon them for near an hour, which fatigue, together
with the heat of the house, very nearly annihilated me. I was
for the Russian treaty as a prudent eventual measure at the
beginning of a war, and probably preventive even of a war in
that part of the world; but I could not help exposing, though
without opposing, the Hessian treaty, which is, indeed, the
most extraordinary one I ever saw."-E.
(645) " Here, pleased, behold her mighty wings outspread,
To hatch a new Saturnian age of Lead." Dunciad.-E.
(646) Mr. Pelham.
(647) "Places," writes Lord Chesterfield to Mr. Dayrolles on
the 19th, "are emptying and filling every day. The patriot of
Monday is the courtier of Tuesday, and the courtier of
Wednesday is the patriot of Thursday. This, indeed, has more
or less been long the case, but I really think never so
impudently and so profligately as now. @The power is all
falling from his Grace's into Fox's hands; which, you may
remember, I told you long ago would happen."-E.
297 Letter 165
To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 20, 1755.
I am very much pleased that you are content with what are to
be trees a thousand years hence, though they were the best my
Libanus afforded. I was afraid you would think I had sent you
a bundle of picktooths, instead of pines and firs: may you
live to chat under their shade! I am still more pleased to
hear that you are to be happy in some good fortune to the
Colonel: he deserves it; but, alas! what a claim is that!
Whatever makes him happy, makes you so, and consequently me.
A regular opposition, composed of immense abilities, has
entertained us for this month. George Grenville, Legge, a Dr.
Hay, a Mr. Elliot, have shone; Charles Townshend lightened;
Pitt has rode in the whirlwind, and directed the storm with
abilities beyond the common reach of the genii of a tempest.
As soon as that storm has a little spent its fury, the dew of
preferments begins to fall and fatten the land. Moses and
Aaron differ indeed a little in which shall dispense the
manna, and both struggle for their separate tribes. Earl
Gower is privy seal, the Lords Darlington and Dublin joint
paymasters, Lord Gage paymaster of the pensions, Mr. O'Brien
in the treasury. That old rag of a dishclout ministry, Henry
Furnese, is to be the other lord. Lord Bateman and Dick
Edgcumbe(648) are the new admirals; Rigby, Soame Jennings, and
Talbot the Welsh judge, lords of trade; the Duke of Leeds
cofferer, Lord Sandwich chief justice in eyre, Ellis and Lord
Sandys (autre dishclout) divide the half of the treasury of
Ireland, George Selwyn paymaster of the board of works,
Arundel is to have a pension in Ireland, and Lord Hillsborough
succeeds him -,is treasurer of the chambers, though I thought
he was as fond of his white staff as my Lord Hobart will be,
who is to have it. There, if you love new politics! You
understand, to make these vacancies, that Charles Townshend
and John Pitt are added to the dismissed and dead.
My Lord Townshend is dying; the young Lord Pembroke marries
the charming Lady Betty Spencer.(649) The French are thought
to have passed eldest as to England, and to intend to take in
Hanover. I know an old potentate who had rather have the gout
in his stomach than in that little toe. Adieu! I have sent
your letter; make my compliments, and come to town.