I will certainly try to see you during your waiting.,' Adieu!

(913) In the preceding month, Prince Edward had been appointed

a midshipman, and in July embarked on board the Essex,

commanded by Lord Howe, upon the expedition against

Cherburg.-E.

(914) William Pitt, secretary of state.

(915) Lord Anson, first lord of the admiralty.

(916) The seat of the Earl of Hertford.

(917) the eldest daughter of Sir Edward Walpole.

(918) Anecdotes of Painting.

(919) As groom of the bedchamber to the King.

436 Letter 275

To The Rev. Henry Zouch.(920)

Strawberry Hill, August 3d, 1758.

Sir,

I have received, with much pleasure and surprise, the favour of

your remarks upon my Catalogue; and whenever I have the

opportunity of being better known to you, I shall endeavour to

express my gratitude for the trouble you have given yourself in

contributing to perfect a work,(921) which, notwithstanding

your obliging expressions, I fear you found very little worthy

the attention of so much good sense and knowledge, Sir, as you

possess. I am extremely thankful for all the information you

have given me; I had already met with a few of the same lights

as I have received, Sir, from you, as I shall mention in their

place. The very curious accounts of Lord Fairfax were entirely

new and most acceptable to me. If I decline making use of one

or two of your hints, I believe I can explain my reasons to

your satisfaction. I will, with your leave, go regularly

through your letter.

As Caxton(922) laboured in the monastery of Westminster, it is

not at all unlikely that he should wear the habit, nor,

considering how vague our knowledge of that age is, impossible

but he might enter the order.

I have met with Henry's institution of a Christian, and shall

give you an account of it in my next edition. In that, too, I

shall mention, that Lord Cobham's(923) allegiance professed at

his death to Richard II. probably means to Richard and his

right heirs, whom he had abandoned for the house of Lancaster.

As the article is printed off, it is too late to say any thing

more about his works.

In all the old books of genealogy you will find, Sir, that

young Richard Duke of York(924) was solemnly married to a child

of his own age, Anne Mowbray, the heiress of Norfolk, who died

young as well as he.

The article of the Duke of Somerset is printed off too;

besides, I should imagine the letter you mention not to be of

his own composition, for, though not illiterate, he certainly

could not write any thing like classic Latin.(925) I may, too,

possibly, have inclusively mentioned the very letter; I have

not Ascham's book, to see from what copy the letter was taken,

but probably from one of those which I have said is in Bennet

Library.

The Catalogue of Lord Brooke's works is taken from the volume

of his works; such pieces of his as I found doubted,

particularly the tragedy of Cicero, I have taken notice of as

doubtful.

In my next edition you will see, Sir, a note on Lord Herbert,

who, besides being with the King at York, had offended the

peers by a speech in his Majesty's defence. Mr. Wolseley's

preface I shall mention, from your information. Lord

Rochester's letters to his son are letters to a child, bidding

him mind his book and his grandmother. I had already been

told, Sir, what you tell me of marchmont Needham.

Matthew Clifford I have altered to Martin, as you prescribe:

the blunder was my own, as well as a more considerable one,

that of Lord Sandwich's death--which was occasioned by my

supposing at first, that the translation of Barba(926) was made

by the second earl, whose death I had marked in the list, and

forgot to alter, after I had writ the account of the father. I

shall take care to set this right, as the second volume is not

yet begun to be printed.

Lord Halifax's maxims I have already marked down, as I shall

Lord Dorset's share in Pompey.

The account of the Duke of Wharton's death I had from a very

good hand--Captain Willoughby; who, in the convent where the

duke died, saw a picture of him in the habit. If it was a

Bernardine convent, the Gentleman might confound them; but,

considering that there is no life of the duke but bookseller's

trash, it is much more likely that they mistook.

I have no doubts about Lord Belhaven's speeches; but unless I

could verify their being published by himself, it were contrary

to my rule to insert them.

If you look, Sir, into Lord Clarendon's account Of Montrose's

death, you will perceive that there is no probability of the

book of his actions being composed by himself.

I will consult Sir James Ware's book on Lord Totness's and I

will mention the Earl of Cork's Memoirs.

Lord Lessington is the Earl of Monmouth, in whose article I

have taken notice of his Romulus and Tarquin.

Lord Berkeley's book I have actually got, and shall give him an

article.

There is one more passage, Sir, in your letter, which I cannot

answer, without putting you to new trouble-a liberty which all

your indulgence cannot justify me in taking; else I would beg

to know on what authority you attribute to Laurence Earl of

Rochester(927) the famous preface to his father's history,

which I have always heard ascribed to Atterbury, Smallridge,

and Aldridge. The knowledge of this would be an additional

favour; it would be a much greater, Sir, if coming this way,

you would ever let me have the honour of seeing a gentleman to

whom I am so much obliged.

(920) The Rev. Henry Zouch was the elder brother of Dr. Thomas

Zouch, better known in the literary world. Henry principally

dedicated himself to the performance of his duties as a

clergyman, a country gentleman and a magistrate; in all which

characters he was highly exemplary. He published several works

connected with these avocations, particularly on the management

of prisons, and on other points of police. He had, also,

earlier days, been a poet; and these letters show that he was

well acquainted with the literary history and antiquities of

his country. Having lived in close intimacy and friendship

with Mr. Walpole's friend and correspondent, William Earl of

Strafford, it is probable that through him he became interested

in Mr. Walpole's pursuits, and disposed to contribute that

assistance towards the perfection of the "Catalogue of Royal

and Noble authors," which is so justly acknowledged by Mr.

Walpole. Mr. Zouch died at the family seat of sandall, in

Yorkshire, of which parish he was also vicar, in June, 1795;

leaving his friend and kinsman, the Earl of lonsdale, his

executor, by whose favour these letters are now given to the

public. The exact time of his birth is not ascertained; but as

he was an A. B. of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1746, he

probably was born about 1725.-C. [Mr. Walpole's Letters to the

Rev. Henry Zouch first appeared in the year 1805, edited by the

Right Honourable John Wilson Croker; to whose notes the initial

C. is affixed.]

(921) The "Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors," originally

published by Mr. Walpole in 1758. Mr. Zouch appears to have

commenced the correspondence on the occasion of this

publication. The author of the Catalogue received much of the

same kind of assistance as was given to him by Mr. Zouch; but

as editor, Mr. Park, says, "it would seem that Lord Orford was

more thankful for communications tendered, than desirous to let

the contents of them be seen."-C.

(922) It is probable that Mr. Zouch objected to Mr. Walpole's

assertion, that the illumination prefixed to a manuscript in

Lambeth library, of Earl Rivers's translation of "The Dictes

and Sayings of the Philosophers, by Jehan de Teonville,"

represented the Earl introducing Caxton to Edward IV. Mr.

Zouch seems to have very properly doubted whether Caxton would

wear the clerical habit, as the figure referred to in that

illumination does; and Mr. Walpole replies to that doubt. Upon

the same subject, Mr. Cole says, qu. how Lord Orford came to

know the kneeling figure in a clerical habit, was Caxton the

printer? He is certainly a priest, as is evident from his

tonsure, but I do not think that Caxton was in orders. I

should rather suppose that it was designed for Jehan de

Teonville, provost of Paris."-C.

(923) Mr. Walpole did make this promised statement in the

following note: "King Richard had long been dead; I suppose it

is only meant that Lord Cobham disclaimed obedience to the

house of Lancaster, who had usurped the throne of King Richard

and his right heirs."-C.

(924) He was married on the 15th of January, 1477-8, in the

fourth year of his age.-C.

(925) In a subsequent edition Mr. Walpole recites the title of

this letter, "Epistola exhortatoria missa ad Nobilitatem ac

Plebem universumque Populum Regni Scotiae," printed in 4to. at

London, 1548; and he adds, this might possibly be composed by

some dependant. We do not exactly see the grounds of Walpole's

assertion, that the Lord Protector Somerset "could not write

any thing like classic Latin;": although we admit that his

having been chancellor of Cambridge is not conclusive evidence

upon this subject; and that it is probable that the letter was

written by his secretary.-C.

(926) "The Art of Metals, in which is declared the manner of

their generation." Albara Alonzo Barba was curate of St.

Bernard's in Potosi. This work, which contains a great deal of

practical information on mining, has also been translated into

German and French. The English editions are very scarce, and a

republication might be desirable in this age of mining

adventure.-C.

(927) Second son of the great Lord Clarendon. Mr. Walpole

makes no mention of this preface, but Mr. Park seems to have

entertained the same idea as Mr. Zouch, as he says, "His

lordship merits honourable notice in the present work, as the

conceived author of a preface to the first edition of his noble

father's history, which abounds with dignified sentiment and

filial reverence."-C.

439 Letter 276

To The Rev. Henry Zouch.

Strawberry Hill, August 12, 1758.

Sir,

It were a disrespect to your order, of which I hope you think

me incapable, not to return an immediate answer to the favour

of your last, the engaging modesty of which would raise my

esteem if I had not felt it before for you. I certainly do not

retract my desire of being better acquainted with you, Sir,

from the knowledge you are pleased to give me of yourself.

Your profession is an introduction any where; but, before I

learned that, you will do me the justice to observe, that your

good sense and learning were to me sufficient recommendation;

and though, in the common intercourse of the world, rank and

birth have their proper distinctions, there is certainly no

occasion for them between men whose studies and inclinations

are the same. Indeed, I know nothing that gives me any

pretence to think any gentlemen my inferior. I am a very

private person myself, and if I have any thing to boast from my

birth, it is from the good understanding, not from the nobility

of my father. I must beg, therefore, that, in the future

correspondence, which I hope we shall have, you will neither

show me, nor think I expect, a respect to which I have no

manner of title, and which I wish not for, unless it would

enable me to be of service to gentlemen of merit, like

yourself. I will say no more on this head, but to repeat, that

if any occasion should draw you to this part of England, (as I

shall be sorry if it is ill health that has carried you from

home,) I flatter myself you will let me have the satisfaction

and, for the last time of using so formal a word, the honour of

seeing you.

In the mean time, you will oblige me by letting me know how I

can convey my Catalogue to you. I ought, I know, to stay till

I can send you a more correct edition; but, though the first

volume is far advanced, the second may profit by your remarks.

If you could send me the passage and the page in Vardus,

relating to the Earl of Totness, it would much oblige ne; for I

have only the English edition; and as I am going a little

journey for a week, cannot just now get the Latin.

You mention, Sir, Mr. Thoresby's museum: is it still preserved

entire?

I would fain ask you another question, very foreign to any

thing I have been saying, but from your searches into

antiquity, you may possibly, Sir, be able to explain what

nobody whom I have consulted hitherto can unravel. At the end

of the second part of the p. 105, in the folio edition, is a

letter from Henry VIII. to the Cardinal Cibo, dated from our

palace, Mindas, 10th July, 1527. In no map, topographical

account, or book of antiquity, can I possibly find such house

or place as Mindas.(928)

(928) See this corrected as a typographical mistake, post, p.

455.-C.

440 Letter 277

To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, Aug. 12, 1758.

It is not a thousand years since I wrote to you, is it?--nay,

if it is, blame the King of Prussia, who has been firing away

his time at Olmutz; blame Admiral Howe, who never said a word

of having taken Cherbourg till yesterday.--Taken Cherbourg!--

yes, he has--he landed within six miles of it on the 6th, saw

some force, who only stayed to run away; attacked a fort, a

magazine blew up, the Guards marched against a body of French,

who again made fools of them, pretending to stand, and then ran

away--and then, and then, why, then we took Cherbourg. We

pretended to destroy the works. and a basin that has just cost

two millions. We have not lost twenty men. The City of

London, I suppose, is drinking brave Admiral Howe's and brave

Cherbourg's health; but I miss all these festivities by going

into Warwickshire tomorrow to Lord Hertford. In short,

Cherbourg comes very opportunely: we had begun to grow peevish

at Louisbourg not being arrived, and there are some(929) people

at least as peevish that Prince de Soubize has again walked

into Hanover after having demolished the Hessians. Prince

Ferdinand, who a fortnight ago was as great a hero as if he had

been born in Thames Street, is kept in check by Monsieur de

Contades, and there are some little apprehensions that our

Blues, etc., will not be able to join him. Cherbourg will set

all to rights; the King of Prussia may fumble as much as he

pleases, and though the French should not be frightened out of

their senses at the loss of this town, we shall be fully

persuaded they are, and not a gallon less of punch will be

drunk from Westminster to Wapping.

I have received your two letters of July 1st and 7th, with the

prices of Stosch's medals, and the history of the new

pontificate. I will not meddle with the former, content with

and thanking you much for those you send me; and for the case

of liqueurs, which I don't intend to present myself with, but

to pay you for.

You must, I think, take up with this scrap of a letter;

consider it contains a conquest. If I wrote any longer, before

I could finish my letter, perhaps I should hear that our fleet

was come back again, and, though I should be glad they were

returned safely, it diminishes the lustre of a victory to have

a tame conclusion to it-without that, you are left at liberty

to indulge vision--Cherbourg is in France, Havre and St. Maloes

may catch the panic, Calais my be surprised, that may be

followed by a battle which we may gain; it is but a march of a

few days to Paris, the King flies to his good allies the Dutch

for safety, Prince Edward takes possession of the Bastile in

his brother's name, to whom the King, content with England and

Hanover--alas! I had forgot that he has just lost the

latter.-Good night!

Sunday morning.

Mr. Conway, who is just come in to carry me away, brings an

account of an important advantage gained by a detachment of six

battalions of Hanoverians, who have demolished fourteen of the

French, and thereby secured the magazines and a junction with

the English.

(929) The King.

441 Letter 278

To George Montagu, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, Aug. 20, 1758.

After some silence, one might take the opportunity of

Cherbourg(930) and Louisbourg(931) to revive a little

correspondence with popular topics; but I think you are no

violent politician, and I am full as little so; I will

therefore tell you of what I of course care more, and I am

willing to presume you do too; that is, myself. I have been

journeying much since I heard from you; first to the Vine,

where I was greatly pleased with the alterations; the garden is

quite beautified and the house dignified. We went over to the

Grange, that sweet house of my Lord Keeper's(932) that you saw

too. The pictures are very good, and I was particularly

pleased with the procession, which you were told was by Rubens,

but is certainly Vandyke's sketch for part of that great work,

that he was to have executed in the Banqueting-house. You did

not tell me of a very fine Holbein, a woman, who was evidently

some princess of the White Rose.

I am just now returned from Ragley, which has had a great deal

done to it since I was there last. Browne(933) has improved

both the ground and the water, though not quite to perfection.

This is the case of the house: where there are no striking

faults, but it wants a few Chute or Bentley touches. I have

recommended some dignifying of the saloon with Seymours and

Fitzroys, Henry the Eighths and Charles the Seconds. They will

correspond well to the proudest situation imaginable. I have

already dragged some ancestors out of the dust there, written

their names on their portraits; besides which, I have found and

brought up to have repaired an incomparable picture of Van

Helmont by Sir Peter Lely.--But now for recoveries---think what

I have in part recovered! Only the state papers, private

letters, etc., etc., of the two Lords Conway,(934) secretaries

of state. How you will rejoice and how you will grieve! They

seem to have laid up every scrap of paper they ever had. from

the middle of Queen Elizabeth's reign to the middle of Charles

the Second's. By the accounts of the family there were whole

rooms full; all which, during the absence of the last and the

minority of the present lord, were by the ignorance of a

steward consigned to the oven and the uses of the house. What

remained, except one box that was kept till almost rotten in a

cupboard, were thrown loose into the lumber room; where, spread

on the pavement, they supported old marbles and screens and

boxes. From thence I have dragged all I could, and, have

literally, taking all together, brought away a chest near five

feet long, three wide, and two deep, brim full. Half are

bills, another part rotten, another gnawed by rats; yet I have

already found enough to repay my trouble and curiosity, not

enough to satisfy it. I will only tell you of three letters of

the great Strafford and three long ones of news of Mr. Gerrard,

master of the Charter-house; all six written on paper edged

with green, like modern French paper. There are handwritings

of every body, all their seals perfect, and the ribands with

which they tied their letters. The original proclamations of

Charles the First, signed by the privy council; a letter to

King James from his son-in-law of Bohemia, with his seal; and

many, very many letters of negotiation from the Earl of Bristol

in Spain, Sir Dudley Carleton, Lord Chichester, and Sir Thomas

Roe.--What say you? will not here be food for the press?

I have picked up a little painted glass too, and have got a

promise of some old statues, lately dug up, which formerly

adorned the cathedral of Litchfield. You see I continue to

labour in my vocation, of which I can give you a comical

instance:--I remembered a rose in painted glass in a little

village going to Ragley, which I remarked passing by five years

ago; told Mr. Conway on which hand it would b, and found it in

the very spot. I saw a very good and perfect tomb at Alcester

of Sir Fulke Greville's father and mother, and a wretched old

house with a very handsome gateway of stone at Colton,

belonging to Sir Robert Throckmorton. There is nothing else

tolerable but twenty-two coats of the matches of the family in

painted glass.--You cannot imagine how astonished a Mr.

Seward,(935) a learned clergyman, was, who came to Ragley while

I was there. Strolling about the house, he saw me first

sitting on the pavement of the lumber room with Louis, all over

cobwebs and dust and mortar; then found me in his own room on a

ladder writing on a picture; and half an hour afterwards lying

on the grass in the court with the dogs and the children, in my

slippers and without my hat. He had had some doubt whether I

was the painter or the factotum of the family; but you would

have died at his surprise when he saw me walk into dinner

dressed and sit by Lady Hertford. Lord Lyttelton was there,

and the conversation turned on literature: finding me not quite

ignorant added to the parson's wonder; but he could not contain

himself any longer, when after dinner he saw me go to romps and

jumping with the two boys; he broke out to my Lady Hertford,

and begged to know who and what sort of man I really was, for

he had never met with any thing of the kind. Adieu!

(930) About the middle of this month General Blighe had landed

with an army on the coast of France, near Cherbourg, destroyed

the basin, harbour, and forts of that place, and re-embarked

his troops without loss.

(931) Alluding to the surrender of Louisbourg and the whole

island of Cape Breton on the coast of North America to General

Amherst and Admiral Boscawen.

(932) Lord Keeper Henley, in 1761 made lord chancellor, and in

1764 created Lord Northington.-E.

(933) Capability Browne. See vol. ii. p. 112, letter 46.-E.

(934) Sir Edward Conway, secretary of state to James the First,

created Baron Conway in 1624; and Edward Conway, his grandson,

secretary of state in the reign of Charles the Second, 1679,

created Earl of Conway.-E.

(935) The Rev. Thomas Seward, canon residentiary of Lichfield,

and father of Ann Seward the poetess.-E.

443 Letter 279

To John Chute, Esq.(936)

Arlington Street, August 22, 1758.

By my ramble into Warwickshire I am so behindhand in politics,

that I don't know where to begin to tell you any news, and

which by this time would not be news to you. My table is

covered with gazettes, victories and defeats which have come in

such a lump, that I am not quite sure whether it is Prince

Ferdinand or Prince Boscawen that has taken Louisbourg, nor

whether it is the late Lord Howe or the present that is killed

at Cherbourg. I am returning to Strawberry, and shall make Mr.

M`untz's German and military sang-froid set the map in my head

to rights.

I saw my Lord Lyttelton and Miller at Ragley; the latter put me

out of all patience. As he has heard me talked of lately, he

thought it not below him to consult me on ornaments for my

lord's house. I, who know nothing but what I have purloined

from Mr. Bentley and you, and who have not forgotten how little

they tasted your real taste and charming plan, was rather

lost.--To my comfort, I have seen the plan of their hall; it is

stolen from Houghton, and mangled frightfully: and both their

eating-room and salon are to be stucco, with pictures.

I have not time or paper to give you a full account of' a vast

treasure that I have discovered at Lord Hertford's, and brought

away with me. If I were but so lucky as to be thirty years

older, i might have been much luckier. In short, I have got

the remains of vast quantities of letters and state papers of

the two Lords Conway, secretaries of state--forty times as many

have been using for the oven and the house, by sentence of a

steward during my lord's minority. Most of what I have got are

gnawed by rats, rotten, or not worth a straw: and yet I shall

save some volumes of what is very curious and valuable--three

letters of Mr. Gerrard, of the Charter-house, some of Lord

Strafford, and two of old Lennox, the Duchess, etc., etc. In

short, if I can but continue to live thirty years

extraordinary, in lieu of those I have missed, I shall be able

to give to the world some treasures from the press at

Strawberry. Do tell me a little of your motions, and good

night.

(936) Now first printed.

444 Letter 280

To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, Aug. 24, 1758.

You must go into laurels, you must go into mourning. our

expedition has taken Cherbourg shamefully--I mean the French

lost it shamefully--and then stood looking on while we

destroyed all their works, particularly a basin that had cost

vast sums. But, to balance their awkwardness with ours, it

proved to be an open place, which we might have taken when we

were before it a month ago. The fleet is now off Portland,

expecting orders for landing or proceeding. Prince Edward gave

the ladies a ball, and told them he was too young to know what

was good-breeding in France, he would therefore behave as he

should if meaning to please in England--and kissed them all.

Our next and greatest triumph is the taking of Cape Breton, the

account of which came on Friday. The French have not improved

like their wines by crossing the sea; but lost their spirit at

Louisbourg as much as on their own coast. The success,

especially, in the destruction of their fleet, is very great:

the triumphs not at all disproportioned to the conquest, of

which you will see all the particulars in the Gazette. Now for

the chapter of cypresses. The attempt on Crown-point has

failed; Lord Howe(937) was killed in a skirmish; and two days

afterwards by blunders, rashness, and bad intelligence, we

received a great blow at Ticonderoga. There is a Gazette, too,

with all the history of this. My hope is that Cape Breton may

buy us Minorca and a peace, I have great satisfaction in

Captain Hervey's gallantry; not only he is my friend, but I

have the greatest regard for and obligations to my Lady Hervey;

he is her favourite son and she is particularly happy.

Mr. Wills is arrived and has sent me the medals, for which I

give you a million of thanks; the scarce ones are not only

valuable for the curiosity of them, but for their preservation.

I laughed heartily at the Duke of Argyll, and am particularly

pleased with the Jesus Rex noster.(938)

Chevert, the best and most sensible of the French officers, has

been beat by a much smaller number under the command of Imhoff,

who, I am told, would be very stupid, if a German could be so.

I think they hope a little still for Hanover, from this

success. Of the King of Prussia--not a word.

My lady Bath has had a paralytic stroke, which drew her mouth

aside and took away her speech. I never heard a greater

instance of cool sense; she made sign for a pen and ink, and

wrote Palsy. They got immediate assistance, and she is

recovered.

As I wrote to you but a minute ago, I boldly conclude this

already. Adieu!

(937) General George Augustus, third Viscount Howe. He was

succeeded in the title by his brother Richard, the celebrated

admiral. Mr. George Grenville, in a letter to Mr. Pitt, of the

28th, pays the following tribute to his memory:-"I admired his

virtuous, gallant character, and lament his loss accordingly: I

cannot help thinking it peculiarly unfortunate for his country

and his friends, that he should fall in the first action of

this war, before his spirit and his example, and the success

and glory which, in all human probability, would have attended

them, had produced their full effect on our troops, and those

of the enemy." Chatham Correspondence, vol. i. p. 339.-E.

(938) Inscription on a silver coin of the republic of Florence,

who declared Jesus Christ their King, to prevent the usurpation

of Pope Clement VII.

445 Letter 281

To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 2, 1758.

It is well I have got something to pay you for the best letter

that ever was! A vast victory, I own, does not entertain me so

much as a good letter; but you are bound to like any thing

military better than your own wit, and therefore I hope you

will think a defeat of the Russians a better bon-mot than any

you sent me. Should you think it clever if the King of Prussia

has beaten them? How much cleverer if he has taken three

lieutenant-generals and an hundred pieces of cannon? How much

cleverer still, if he has left fifteen thousand Muscovites dead

on the Spot?(939) Does the loss of only three thousand of his

own men take off from or sharpen the sting of this joke? In

short, all this is fact, as a courier arrived at Sion Hill this

morning affirms. The city, I suppose, expect that his Majesty

will now be"at leisure to step to Ticonderoga and repair our

mishaps.(940) But I shall talk no more politics; if this finds

you at Chatworth, as I suppose it will, you will be better

informed than from me.

lady Mary Coke arrived at Ragley between two and three in the

morning; how unlucky that I was not there to offer her part of

an aired bed! But how could you think of the proposal you have

made me? Am not I already in love with "the youngest,

handsomest, and wittiest widow in England?" As Herculean a

labourer as I am, as Tom Hervey says, I don't choose another.

I am still in the height of my impatience for the chest of old

papers from Ragley, which, either by the fault of their

servants, or of the wagoner, is not yet arrived. I shall go to

London again on Monday in quest of it; and in truth think so

much of it, that, when I first heard of the victory this

morning, I rejoiced, as we were likely now to recover the

Palatinate. Good night!

(939) The defeat of the Russians at Zorndorf.

(940) The repulse of General Abercrombie at Ticonderoga.

446 Letter 282

To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 9, 1758.

Well! the King of Prussia is found again--where do you think?

only in Poland, up to the chin in Russians! Was ever such a

man! He was riding home from Olmutz; they ran and told him of

an army of Muscovites,(941) as you would of a covey of

partridges; he galloped thither, and shot them. But what news

I am telling you! I forgot that all ours comes by

water-carriage, and that you must know every thing a fortnight

before us. It is incredible how popular he is here; except a

few, who take him for the same person as Mr. Pitt, the lowest

of the people are perfectly acquainted with him: as I was

walking by the river the other night, a bargeman asked me for

something to drink the King of Prussia's health. Yet Mr. Pitt

specifies his own glory as much as he can: the standards taken

at Louisbourg have been carried to St. Paul's with much parade;

and this week, after bringing it by land from Portsmouth, they

have dragged the cannon of Cherbourg into Hyde Park, on

pretence of diverting a man,(942) whom, in former days, I

believe, Mr. Pitt has laughed for loving such rattles as drums

and trumpets. Our expedition, since breaking a basin at

Cherbourg, has done nothing, but are dodging about still.

Prince Edward gave one hundred guineas to the poor of

Cherbourg, and the General and Admiral twenty-five apiece. I

love charity, but sure is this excess of it, to lay out

thousands, and venture so many lives, for the opportunity of

giving a Christmas-box to your enemies! Instead of beacons, I

suppose, the coast of France will be hung with pewter-pots with

a slit in them, as prisons are, to receive our alms.

Don't trouble yourself about the Pope: I am content to find

that he will by no means eclipse my friend. You please me with

telling me of a collection of medals bought for the Prince of

Wales. I hope it Is his own taste; if it is only thought right

that he should have it, I am glad.

I am again got into the hands of builders, though this time to

a very small extent; only the addition of a little cloister and

bedchamber. A day may come that will produce a gallery, a

round tower, a large cloister, and a cabinet, in the manner of

a little chapel: but I am too poor for these ambitious designs

yet, and I have so many ways of dispersing My Money, that I

don't know when I shall be richer. However, I amuse myself

infinitely; besides my printing-house, which is constantly at

work, besides such a treasure of taste and drawing as my friend

Mr. Bentley, I have a painter in the house, who is an engraver

too, a mechanic, an every thing. He was a Swiss engineer in

the French service; but his regiment being broken at the peace,

Mr. Bentley found him in the Isle of Jersey and fixed him with

me. He has an astonishing genius for landscape, and added to

that, all the industry and patience of a German. We are just

now practising, and have succeeded surprisingly in a new method

of painting, discovered at Paris by Count Caylus, and intended

to be the encaustic method of the ancients. My Swiss has

painted, I am writing the account,(943) and my press is to

notify our improvements. As you will know that way, I will not

tell you here at large. In short, to finish all the works I

have in hand, and all the schemes I have in my head, I cannot

afford to live less than fifty years more. What pleasure it

would give me to see you here for a moment! I should think I

saw you and your dear brother at once! Can't you form some

violent secret expedition against Corsica or Port Mahon, which

may make it necessary for you to come and settle here? Are we

to correspond till we meet in some unknown world? Alas! I fear

so; my dear Sir, you are as little likely to save money as I

am--would you could afford to resign your crown and be a

subject at Strawberry Hill! Adieu!

P. S. I have forgot to tell you of a wedding in our family; my

brother's eldest daughter(944) is to be married tomorrow to

lord Albemarle's third brother, a canon of Windsor. We are

very happy with the match. The bride is very agreeable, and

sensible, and good; not so handsome as her sisters, but further

from ugliness than beauty. It is the second, Maria,(945) who

is beauty itself! Her face, bloom, eyes, hair, teeth, and

person are all perfect. You may imagine how charming she is,

when her only fault, if one must find one, is, that her face is

rather too round. She has a great deal of wit and vivacity,

with perfect modesty. I must tell you too of their

brother:(946) he was on the expedition to St. Maloes; a party

of fifty men appearing on a hill, he was despatched to

reconnoitre with only eight men. Being stopped by a brook, he

prepared to leap it; an old sergeant dissuaded him, from the

inequality of the numbers. "Oh!" said the boy, "I will tell you

what; our profession is bred up to so much regularity that any

novelty terrifies them--with our light English horses we will

leap this stream; and I'll be d--d if they don't run." He did

so, and they did so. However, he was not content; but insisted

that each of his party should carry back a prisoner before

them. They got eight, when they overtook an elderly man, to

whom they offered quarter, bidding him lay down his arms. He

replied, "they were English, the enemies of his King and

country; that he hated them, and had rather be killed." My

nephew hesitated a minute, and said, "I see you are a brave

fellow, and don't fear death, but very likely you fear a

beating-if you don't lay down your arms this instant, my men

shall drub you as long as they can stand over you." The fellow

directly flung down his arms in a passion. The Duke of

Marlborough sent my brother word of this, adding, it was the

only clever action in their whole exploit. Indeed I am pleased

with it; for besides his spirit, I don't see, with this thought

and presence of mind, why he should not make a general. I

return to one little word of the King of Prussia-- shall I tell

you? I fear all this time he is only fattening himself with

glory for Marshal Daun, who will demolish him at last, and

then, for such service, be shut up in some fortress or in the

inquisition--for it is impossible but the house of Austria must

indemnify themselves for so many mortifications by some horrid

ingratitude!

(941) This was the battle of Zorndorf, fought on the @5th of

August, 1758, and gained by the King of Prussia over the

Russians, commanded by Count Fermor.-D.

(942) The King.

(943) M`untz left Mr. Walpole, and published another account

himself.

(944) Laura, this eldest daughter of Sir Edward Walpole,

married to Dr. Frederick Keppel, afterwards Dean of Windsor and

Bishop of Exeter.

(945) Maria, second daughter, married first to James second

Earl of Waldegrave, and afterwards to William Henry Duke of

Gloucester, brother to King George the Third.

(946) Edward, only son of Sir Edward Walpole. He died young.

448 Letter 283

To The Rev. Henry Zouch.

Strawberry Hill, September 14, 1758.

Sir,

Though the approaching edition of my Catalogue is so far

advanced that little part is left now for any alteration, yet

as a book of that kind is always likely to be reprinted from

the new persons who grow entitled to a place in it, and as long

as it is in my power I shall wish to correct and improve it, I

must again thank you, Sir, for the additional trouble you have

given yourself. The very first article strikes me much. May I

ask where, and in what page of what book, I can find Sir R.

Cotton's account of Richard II.(947) being an author: does not

he mean Richard I.?

The Basilicon Doron is published in the folio of K. James's

works, and contains instructions to his son, Prince Henry. In

return, I will ask you where you find those verses of Herbert;

and I would also ask you, how you have had time to find and

know so much?

Lord Leicester, and much less the Duke of Monmouth, will

scarce, I fear, come under the description I have laid down to

myself of authors. I doubt the first did not compose his own

Apology.

Did the Earl of Bath publish, or only design to publish,

Dionysius?(948) Shall I find the account in Usher's Letters?

Since you are so very kind, Sir, as to favour me with your

assistance, shall I beg, Sir, to prevent my repeating trouble

to you, just to mark at any time where you find the notices you

impart to Me; for, though the want of a citation is the effect

of my ignorance, it has the same consequence to you.

I have not the Philosophical Transactions, but I will hereafter

examine them on the hints you mention, particularly for Lord

Brounker,(949) who I did not know had written, though I have

often thought it probable he did. As I have considered Lord

Berkeley's Love-letters, I have no doubt but they are a

fiction, though grounded on a real story.

That Lord Falkland was a writer of controversy appears by the

list of his works, and that he is said to have assisted

Chillingworth: that he wrote against Chillingworth, you see,

Sir, depends upon very vague authority; that is, upon the

assertion of an anonymous person, who wrote so above a hundred

years ago.

James, Earl of Marlborough, is entirely a new author to me--at

present, too late. Lord Raymond I had inserted, and he will

appear in the next edition.

I have been as unlucky, for the present, about Lord Totness.

In a collection published in Ireland, called Hibernica, I

found, but too late, that he translated another very curious

piece, relating to Richard II. However, Sir, with these, and

the very valuable helps I have received from you, I shall be

able, at a proper time, to enrich another edition much.

(947) Mr. Walpole takes no notice of Richard II. as an author;

but Mr. park inserts this prince as a writer of ballads. In a

letter to Archbishop Usher, Sir Robert Cotton requested his

grace to procure for him a poem by Richard II. which that

prelate had pointed out.-C.

(948) Spelman's is the only English translation of the

Antiquities of Dionysius Halicarnassensis, known to be

printed.-C.

(949) He wrote several papers in the Philosophical

Transactions, and also translated Descartes' Music Compendium.-

C.

449 Letter 284

To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(950)

Arlington Street, Sept. 19, 1758.

I have all my life laughed at ministers in my letters; but at

least with the decency of obliging them to break open the seal.

You have more noble frankness, and send your satires to the

post with not so much as a wafer, as my Lord Bath did sometimes

in my father's administration. I scarce laughed more at the

inside of your letter than at the cover--not a single button to

the waistband of its beseeches, but all its nakedness fairly

laid open! what was worse, all Lady Mary Coke's nakedness was

laid open at the same time. Is this your way of treating a

dainty widow! What will Mr. Pitt think of all this? will he

begin to believe that you have some spirit, when, with no fear

of Dr. Shebbeare's example(951) before your eyes, you speak

your Mind so freely, without any modification? As Mr. Pitt may

be cooled a little to his senses, perhaps he may now find out,

that a grain of prudence is no bad ingredient in a mass of

courage; in short, he and the mob are at last undeceived, and

have found, by sad experience that all the cannon of France has

not been brought into Hyde Park. An account, which you will

see in the Gazette, (though a little better disguised than your

letters,) is come that after our troops had been set on shore,

and left there, till my Lord Howe went somewhere else, and

cried Hoop! having nothing else to do for four days to amuse

themselves, nor knowing whether there was a town within a

hundred miles, went staring about the country to see whether

there were any Frenchmen left in France; which Mr. Pitt, in

very fine words, had assured them there was not, and which my

Lord Howe, in very fine silence, had confirmed. However,

somehow or other, (Mr. Deputy Hodges says they were not French,

but Papists sent from Vienna to assist the King of France,)

twelve battalions fell upon our rear-guard, and, which General

Blighe says is "very Common," (I suppose he means that rashness

and folly should run itself' into a scrape,)--were all cut to

pieces or taken. The town says, Prince Edward (Duke of York)

ran hard to save himself; I don't mean too fast, but scarcely

fast enough; and the General says, that Lord Frederick

Cavendish, your friend, is safe; the thing he seems to have

thought of most, except a little vain parade of his own

self-denial on his nephew. I shall not be at all surprised if,

to show he was not in the wrong, Mr. Pitt should get ready

another expedition by the depth of winter, and send it in

search of the cannons and colours of these twelve battalions.

Pray Heaven your letter don't put it in his head to give you

the command! It is not true, that he made the King ride upon

one of the cannons to the Tower.

I was really touched with my Lady Howe's advertisement,(952)

though I own at first it made me laugh; for seeing an address

to the voters for Nottingham signed "Charlotte Howe," I

concluded (they are so manly a family) that Mrs. Howe,(953) who

rides a fox-chase, and dines at the table d'h`ote at Grantham,

intended to stand for member of Parliament.

Sir John Armitage died on board a ship before the landing; Lady

Hardwickc's nephew, Mr. Cocks, scarce recovered of his

Cherbourg wound, is killed.' He had seven thousand pounds a

year, and was volunteer. I don't believe his uncle and aunt

advised his venturing so much money.

My Lady Burlington is very ill, and the distemper shows itself

oddly; she breaks out all over in-curses and blasphemies. Her

maids are afraid of catching them, and will hardly venture into

her room.

On reading over your letter again, I begin to think that the

connexion between Mr. Pitt and my dainty widow is stronger than

I imagined. One of them must have caught of the other that

noble contempt which makes a thing's being impossible not

signify. It sounds very well in sensible mouths; but how

terrible to be the chambermaid or the army of such people! I

really am in a panic, and having some mortal impossibilities

about me which a dainty widow might not allow to signify, I

will balance a little between her and my Lady Carlisle, who, I

believe, knows that impossibilities do signify. These were

some of my reflections on reading your letter again; another

was, that I am now convinced you sent your letter open to the

post on purpose; you knew It was so good a letter that every

body ought to see it-and yet you would pass for a modest man!

I am glad I am not in favour enough to be consulted by my Lord

Duchess(954) on the Gothic farm; she would have given me so

many fine and unintelligible reasons why it should not be as it

should be, that I should have lost a little of my patience.

You don't tell me if the goose-board in hornbean is quite

finished; and have you forgot that I actually was in t'other

goose-board, the conjuring room?

I wish you joy on your preferment in the militia, though I do

not think it quite so safe an employment as it used to be. If

George Townshend's disinterested virtue should grow impatient

for a regiment, he will persuade Mr. Pitt that the militia arc

the only troops in the world for taking Rochfort. Such a

scheme would answer all his purposes - would advance his own

interest, contradict the Duke's opinion, who holds militia

cheap, and by the ridiculousness of the attempt would furnish

very good subjects to his talent of buffoonery in black-lead.

The King of Prussia you may believe is in Petersburg, but he

happens to be in Dresden. Good night! Mine and Sir Harry

Hemlock's services to my Lady Ailesbury.

(950) Now first printed.

(951) Dr. Shebbeare had just before been sentenced to fine,

imprisonment, and the pillory for his Sixth Letter to the

People of England. The under-sheriff, however, allowed him to

stand on, instead of in, the pillory; for which lenity he was

prosecuted.-E.

(952 On the news of the death of Lord Howe reaching the dowager

Lady Howe, she addressed the gentry, clergy, and freeholders of

Nottingham, whom the deceased represented in Parliament, in

favour of his next younger brother, Colonel Howe, to supply his

place in the House of Commons. "Permit me," she says, "to

implore the protection of every one of you, as the mother of

him whose life has been lost in the service of his country."

The appeal was responded to, and Colonel, afterwards General

Sir William Howe, was returned.-E.

(953) The Hon. Caroline Howe, daughter of the above-mentioned

lady , who married her namesake, John Howe, Esq. of Hemslop.-E.

(954) The Duchess of Norfolk. She had planted a game of the

goose in hornbean, at Worksop.

451 Letter 285

To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 22, 1758.

The confusion of the first accounts and the unwelcomeness of

the subject, made me not impatient to despatch another letter

so quickly after my last. However, as I suppose the French

relations will be magnified, it is proper to let you know the

exact truth. Not being content with doing nothing at St.

Maloes, and with being suffered to do all we could at

Cherbourg, (no great matter,) our land and sea heroes, Mr. Pitt

and Lord Howe, projected a third--I don't know what to call it.

It seems they designed to take St. Maloes, but being

disappointed by the weather, they--what do you think? landed

fifteen miles from it, with no object nor near any--and lest

that should not be absurd enough, the fleet sailed away for

another bay, leaving the army with only two cannons. to

scramble to them across the country as they could. Nine days

they were staring about France; at last they had notice of

twelve battalions approaching, on which they stayed a little

before they hurried to the transports. The French followed

them at a distance, firing from the upper grounds. When the

greatest part were reimbarked, the French descended and fell on

the rear, on which it Was necessary to sacrifice the Guards to

secure the rest. Those brave young men did wonders--that is,

they were cut to pieces with great intrepidity. We lost

General Dury and ten other officers; Lord Frederick Cavendish

with twenty-three others were taken prisoners. In all we have

lost seven hundred men, but more shamefully for the projectors

and conductors than can be imagined, for no shadow of an excuse

can be offered for leaving them so exposed with no purpose or

possible advantage, in the heart of an Enemy's country. What

heightens the distress. the army sailed from Weymouth with a

full persuasion that they were to be sacrificed to the

vainglorious whims of a man of words(955) and a man(956) of

none!

"Three expeditions we have sent,

And if you bid me show where

I know as well as those who went,

To St. Maloes, Cherbourg, nowhere."

Those, whose trade or amusement is politics, may comfort

themselves with their darling Prussian; he has strode back over

20 or 30,000 Russians,(957) and stepped into Dresden. They

even say that Daun is retired. For my part, it is to inform

you, that I dwell at all on these things. I am shocked with

the iniquities I see and have seen. I abhor their dealings.

"And from my soul sincerely hate

Both Kings and Ministers of State!"

I don't know whether I can attain any goodness by shunning

them, I am sure their society is contagious Yet I will never

advertise my detestation, for if I professed virtue, I should

expect to be suspected of designing to be a minister. Adieu!

you are good, and wilt keep yourself so.

sept. 25th.

I had sealed my letter, but as it cannot go away till

to-morrow, I open it again on receiving yours of Sept. 9th. I

don't understand Marshal Botta's being so well satisfied with

our taking Louisbourg. Are the Austrians disgusted with the

French? Do they begin to repent their alliance? or has he so

much sense as to know what improper allies they have got? It is

very right in you who are a minister, to combat hostile

Ministers--had I been at Florence, I should not have so much

contested the authority of the Abb`e de Ville's performance: I

have no more doubt of' the convention of Closter-Severn having

been scandalously broken, than it was shamelessly disavowed by

those who commanded it.

In our loss are included some of our volunteers; a Sir John

Armitage, a young man of fortune, just come much into the

world, and engaged to the sister(958) of the hot-headed and

cool-tongued Lord Howe; a Mr. Cocks, nephew of lady Hardwicke,

who could not content himself with seven thousand pounds

a-year, without the addition of an ensign's commission - he was

not quite recovered of a wound he had got at CHerbourg. The

royal volunteer, Prince Edward, behaved with much spirit.

Adieu!

(955) Mr. Pitt.-D.

(956) two brothers, successively Lords Howe, were remarkably

silent.

(957) The battle of Zorndorf.-D.

(958) Mary, their youngest sister, was afterwards married to

General Pitt, brother of George Lord Rivers.

453 Letter 286

To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, Oct. 3, 1758.

having no news to send you, but the massacre of St. Cas,(959)

not agreeable enough for a letter, I stayed till I had

something to send you, and behold a book! I have delivered to

portly old Richard, your ancient nurse, the new produce of the

Strawberry press. You know that the wife of Bath is gone to

maunder at St. Peter, and before he could hobble to the gate,

my Lady Burlington, cursing and blaspheming, overtook t'other

Countess, and both together made such an uproar, that the cock

flew up into the tree of life for safety, and St. Peter himself

turned the key and hid himself; and as nobody could get into

t'other world, half the Guards are come back again, and

appeared in the park to-day, but such dismal ghostly figures,

that my Lady Townshend was really frightened, and is again

likely to turn Methodist.

Do you design, or do you not, to look at Strawberry as you come

to town? if you do. I will send a card to my neighbour, Mrs.

Holman, to meet you any day five weeks that you please--or I

can amuse you without cards; such fat bits of your dear dad,

old Jemmy, as I have found among the Conway papers, such

morsels of all sorts! but come and see. Adieu!

(959) The army that took the town of Cherbourg, landed again on

the coast of France near St. Maloes, but was forced to reimbark

in the Bay of St. Cas with the loss of a thousand men.

454 Letter 287

To The Rev. Henry Zouch.

Strawberry Hill, October 5th, 1758.

Sir,

You make so many apologies for conferring great favours on me,

that if you have not a care. I shall find it more convenient

to believe that, instead of being grateful, I shall be very

good if I am forgiving. If I am impertinent enough to take up

this style, at least I promise you I will be very good, and I

will certainly pardon as many obligations as you shall please

to lay on me.

I have that Life of Richard II. It is a poor thing, and not

even called in the title-page Lord Holles's; it is a still

lower trick of booksellers to insert names of authors in a

catalogue, which, with all their confidence, they do not

venture to bestow on the books themselves; I have found several

instances of this.

Lord Preston's Boetius I have. From Scotland, I have received

a large account of Lord Cromerty, which will appear in my next

edition: as my copy is in the press, I do not exactly remember

if there is the Tract on Precedency: he wrote a great number of

things, and was held it) great contempt living and dead.(960)

I have long sought, and wished to find, some piece of Duke

Humphrey:(961) he was a great patron of learning, built the

schools, I think, and gave a library to Oxford. Yet, I fear, I

may not take the authority of Pits, who is a wretched liar; nor

is it at all credible that in so blind an age a Prince, who,

with all his love of learning, I fear, had very little of

either learning or parts, should write on Astronomy;--had it

been on Astrology, it might have staggered me.

My omission of Lord Halifax's maxims was a very careless one,

and has been rectified. I did examine the Musae Anglicaanae,

and I think found a copy or two, and at first fancied I had

found more, till I came to examine narrowly. In the Joys and

Griefs of Oxford and Cambridge, are certainly many noble

copies; but you judge very right, Sir--they are not to be

mentioned, no more than exercises at school, where, somehow or

other, every peer has been a poet. To my shame, you are still

more in the right about the Duke of Buckingham: if you will

give me leave, instead of thinking that he Wrote, hoping to be

mistaken for his predecessor, I will believe that he hoped so

after he had written.

You are again in the right, Sir, about Lord Abercorn, as the

present lord himself informed me. I don't know Lord

Godolphin's verses: at most, by your account, he should be in

the Appendix; but if they are only signed Sidney Godolphin,

they may belong to his uncle, who, if I remember rightly, was

one of the troop of verse-writers of that time.

You have quite persuaded me of the mistake in Mindas; till you

mentioned it, I had forgot that they wrote Windsor "Windesore,"

and then by abbreviation the mistake was easy.

The account of Lord Clarendon is printed off; I do mention as

printed his account of Ireland, though I knew nothing of

Borlase. Apropos, Sir, are you not glad to see that the second

part of his history is actually advertised to come out soon

after Christmas?(962)

Lord Nottingham's letter I shall certainly mention.

I yesterday sent to Mr. Whiston a little piece that I have just

mentioned here, and desired him to convey it to you; you must

not expect a great deal from it: yet it belongs so much to my

Catalogue, that I thought it a duty to publish it. A better

return to some of your civilities is to inform you of Dr.

Jortin's Life of Erasmus, with which I am much entertained.

There are numberless anecdotes of men thought great in their

day, now as much forgotten, that it grows valuable again to

hear about them. The book is written with great moderation and

goodness of heart: the style is not very striking, and has some

vulgarisms, and In a work of that bulk I should rather have

taken more pains to digest and connect it into a flowing

narrative, than drily give it as a diary: yet I dare promise it

will amuse you much.

With your curiosity, Sir, and love of information, I am sure

you will be glad to hear of a most valuable treasure that I

have discovered; it is the collection of state papers,(963)

amassed by the two Lords Conway, that were secretaries of

state, and their family: vast numbers have been destroyed; yet

I came time enough to retrieve vast numbers, many, indeed, in a

deplorable condition. They were buried under lumber' upon the

pavement of an unfinished chapel, at Lord Hertford's in

Warwickshire, and during his minority, and the absence of his

father, an ignorant steward delivered them over to the oven and

kitchen, and yet had not been able to destroy them all. It is

a vast work to dry, range, and read them, and to burn the

useless, as bills, bonds, and every other kind of piece of

paper that ever came into a house, and were all jumbled and

matted together. I propose, by degrees, to print the most

curious; of which, I think, I have already selected enough to

form two little volumes of the size of my Catalogue. Yet I

will not give too great expectations about them, because I know

how often the public has been disappointed when they came to

see in print what in manuscript has appeared to the editor

wonderfully choice.

(960) We can hardly account for this expression, unless Mr.

Walpole alludes to Lord Cromerty's political reputation. Macky

states, that " his arbitrary proceedings had rendered him so

obnoxious to the people, he could not be employed;" and,

certainly, his character for consistency and integrity was not

very exalted: but almost all contemporary writers describe him

as a man of great weight and of singular endowments; and

Walpole himself, in his subsequent editions, calls him "a

person eminent for his learning, and for his abilities as a

statesman and general."-C.

(961) That Duke Humphrey had at least a relish for learning,

may be inferred from the following passage. At the close of a

fine manuscript in the Cotton collection (Nero E. v.) is "Origo

et processus gentis Scotorum, ae de superioritate Regum Angliae

super regnum illud." It once belonged to Humphrey Duke of

Gloucester, and has this Sentence in his own handwriting at the

end, "Cest livre est `a moy Homfrey Duc de Gloucestre, lequel

j'achetay des executeurs de maistre Thomas Polton, feu evesque

de Wurcestre." Bishop Polton died in 1436.-C.

(962) The second part of Lord Clarendon's history was printed

in folio, in 1760, and also in three volumes octavo.-C.

(963) The increased and increasing taste of the public for the

materials of history, such as these valuable papers supply,

will, we have reason to hope, be gratified by the approaching

appearance of this collection, publication of which was, we

see, contemplated even as long since as 1758.-C.

456 Letter 288

To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.

Arlington Street, Oct. 17, 1758.

Your ladyship, I hope, will not think that such a strange thing

as my own picture seems of consequence enough to me to write a

letter about it: but obeying your commands does seem so; lest

you should return and think I had neglected it, I must say that

I have come to town three several times on purpose, but Mr.

Ramsay (I will forgive him) has been constantly Out of town.

So much for that.

I would have sent you word that the King of Portugal coming

along the road at midnight, which was in his own room at noon,

his foot slipped, and three balls went through his body; which,

however, had no other consequence than giving him a stroke of a

palsy, of which he is quite recovered, except being dead.(964)

Some, indeed, are so malicious as to say, that the Jesuits, who

are the most conscientious men in the world, murdered him,

because he had an intrigue with another man's wife: but all

these histories I supposed your ladyship knew better than me,

as, till I came to town yesterday, I imagined you was returned.

For my own part, about whom you are sometimes so good as to

interest yourself, I am as well as can be expected after the

murder of a king and the death of a person of the next

consequence to a king, the master of the ceremonies, poor Sir

Clement,(965) who is supposed to have been suffocated by my

Lady Macclesfield's(966) kissing hands.

This will be a melancholy letter, for I have nothing to tell

your ladyship but tragical stories. Poor Dr. Shawe(967) being

sent for in great haste to Claremont--(It seems the Duchess had

caught a violent cold by a hair of her own whisker getting up

her nose and making her sneeze)--the poor Doctor, I say, having

eaten a few mushrooms before he set out, was taken so ill, that

he was forced to stop at Kingston; and, being carried to the

first apothecary's, prescribed a medicine for himself which

immediately cured him. This catastrophe so alarmed the Duke of

Newcastle, that he immediately ordered all the mushroom beds to

be destroyed, and even the toadstools in the park did not

escape scalping in this general massacre. What I tell you is

literally true. Mr. Stanley, who dined there last Sunday, and

is not partial against that court, heard the edict repeated,

and confirmed it to me last night. And a voice of lamentation

was heard at Ramah in Claremont, Chlo`e(968) weeping for her

mushrooms, and they are not!

After all these important histories, I would try to make you

smile, If I was not afraid you would resent a little freedom

taken with a great name. May I venture?

"Why Taylor the quack calls himself Chevalier,

'Tis not easy a reason to render;

Unless blinding eyes, that he thinks to make clear,

Demonstrates he's but a Pretender.

A book has been left at your ladyship's house; it is Lord

Whitworth's Account of Russia.(969) Monsieur Kniphausen has

promised me some curious anecdotes of the Czarina Catherine-so

my shop is likely to flourish. I am your ladyship's most

obedient servant.

(964) Alluding to the incoherent stories told at the time of

the assassination of the King of Portugal. [The following is

the correct account:--As the King was taking The air in his

coach on the 3d September, attended by only one domestic, he

was attacked in a solitary lane near Belem by three men, one of

whom discharged his carbine at the coachman, and wounded him

dangerously; the other two fired their blunderbusses at the

King, loaded with pieces of iron, and wounded him in the face

and several parts of his body, but chiefly in the right arm,

which disabled him for a long time.

(965) Sir Clement Cotterel.

(966) She had been a common woman.

(967) Physician to the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle.

(968) The Duke of Newcastle's cook.

(969) A small octavo printed at the Strawberry Hill press, to

which Walpole prefixed a preface. Charles Whitworth, in 1720,

created Baron Whitworth of Galway, was ambassador to the court

of petersburgh in the reign of Peter the Great. On his death,

in 1725, the title became extinct.-E.

457 Letter 289

To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(970)

Arlington Street, Oct. 17, 1758.

I have read your letter, as you may believe, with the strictest

attention, and will tell you my thoughts as sincerely as you do

and have a right to expect them.

In the first place, I think you far from being under any

obligation for this notice. If Mr. Pitt is sensible that he

has used you very ill, is it the part of an honest man to

require new submissions, new supplications from the person he

has injured? If he thinks you proper to command, as one must

suppose by this information, is it patriotism that forbids him

to employ an able officer, unless that officer sues to be

employed? Does patriotism bid him send out a man that has had

a stroke of a palsy, preferable to a young man of vigour and

capacity, only because the latter has made' no Application

within these two months!--But as easily as I am inclined to

believe that your merit makes its way even through the cloud of

Mr. Pitt's proud prejudices, yet I own in the present case I

question it. I can see two reasons why he should wish to

entice you to this application: the first is, the clamour

against his giving all commands to young or improper officers

is extreme; Holmes, appointed admiral of the blue but six weeks

ago, has writ a warm letter on the chapter of subaltern

commanders: the second, and possibly connected in his mind with

the former, may be this; he would like to refuse you, and then

say, you had asked when it was too late; and at the same time

would have to say that he would have employed you if you had

asked sooner. This leads me to the point of time: Hobson is

not Only appointed,(971) but Haldane, though going governor to

Jamaica, is made a brigadier and joined to him,--Colonel

Barrington set out to Portsmouth last night. All these

reasons, I think, make it very improper for you to ask this

command now. You have done more than enough to satisfy your

honour, and will certainly have opportunities again of

repeating offers of your service. But though it may be right

to ask in general to serve, I question much if it is advisable

to petition for particulars, any failure in which would be

charged entirely on you. I should wish to have you vindicated

by the rashness of Mr. Pitt and the miscarriages of others, as

I think they hurry to -make you be; but while he bestows only

impracticable commands, knowing that, if there is blood enough

shed, the city of London will be content even with

disappointments, I hope you will not be sacrificed either to

the mob or the minister. And this leads me to the article of

the expedition itself. Martinico is the general notion; a

place the strongest in the world, with a garrison of ten

thousand men. Others now talk of Guadaloupe, almost as strong

and of much less consequence. Of both, every body that knows,

despairs. It is almost impossible for me to find out the real

destination.' I avoid every one of the three factions--and

though I might possibly learn the secret from the chief of one

of them, if he knows it, yet I own I do not care to try; I

don't think it fair to thrust myself into secrets with a man

(972) of whose ambition and views I do not think well, and

whose purposes (in those lights) I have declined and will

decline to serve. Besides, I have reason just now to think

that he and his court are meditating some attempt which may

throw us again into confusion; and I had rather not be told

what I am sure I shall not approve: besides, I cannot ask

secrets of this nature without hearing more with which I would

not be trusted, and which, if divulged, would be imputed to me.

I know you will excuse me for these reasons, especially as you

know how much I would do to serve you, and would even in this

case, if I was not convinced that it is too late for you to

apply; and being too late, they would be glad to say you had

asked too late. Besides if any information could be got from

the channel at which I have hinted, the Duke of Richmond could

get it better than I; and the Duke of Devonshire could give it

you without.

I can have no opinion of the expedition itself, which certainly

started from the disappointment at St. Cas, if it can be called

a disappointment where there was no object. I have still more

doubts on Lord Milton's authority; Clarke(973) was talked to by

the Princess yesterday much more than any body in the room.

Cunningham is made quartermaster-general to this equipment;

these things don't look as if your interest was increased. As

Lord George has sent over his commands for Cunningham, might

not his art at the same time have suggested some application to

you--tell me, do you think he would ask this command for

himself I, who am not of so honest and sincere a nature as you

are, suspect that this hint is sent to you with some bad view-I

don't mean on Lord Milton's part, who I dare say is deceived by

his readiness to serve you; and since you do me the honour of

letting me at all judge for you, which in one light I think I

am fit to do, I mean, as your spirit naturally makes you

overlook every thing to get employed, I would wish you to

answer to Lord Milton,,"that you should desire of all things to

have had this command, but that having been discouraged from

asking what you could not flatter yourself would be granted, it

would look, you think, a vain offer, to sue for what is now

given away, and would not be consistent with your honour to ask

when it is too late." I hint this, as such an answer would

turn their arts on themselves, if, as I believe, they mean to

refuse you, and to reproach you with asking too late.

If the time is come for Mr. Pitt to want you, you will not long

be unemployed; if it is not, then you would get nothing by

asking. Consider, too, how much more graceful a reparation of

your honour it will be, to have them forced to recall you, than

to force yourself on desperate service, as if you yourself, not

they, had injured your reputation.

I can say nothing now on any other chapter, this has so much

engrossed all my thoughts. I see no one reason upon earth for

your asking now. If you ever should ask again, you will not

want opportunities; and the next time you ask, will have just

the same merit that this could have, and by asking in time,

would be liable to none of the objections of that sort which I

have mentioned! Adieu! Timeo Lord George et dona.

(970) Now first printed.

(971) To the command of an expedition against Martinique.-E.

(972) Mr. Fox.

(973) Lord Bute says, in a letter to Mr. Pitt, of the 8th of

September, "With regard to Clarke, I know him well: he must be

joined to a general in whom he has confidence, or not thought

of. Never was man so cut out for bold and hardy enterprises;

but the person who commands him must think in the same way of

him, or the affair of Rochfort will return." Chatham

Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 350.-E.

459 Letter 290

To The Rev. Henry Zouch.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 21st, 1758.

Sir,

Every letter I receive from you is a new obligation, bringing

me new information; but, sure, my Catalogue was not worthy of

giving you so much trouble. Lord Fortescue is quite new to me:

I have sent him to the press. Lord Dorset's poem it will be

unnecessary to mention separately, as I have already said that

his works are to be found among those of the minor poets.

I don't wonder, Sir, that you prefer Lord Clarendon to

Polybius; nor can two authors well be more unlike: the

former(974) wrote a general history in a most obscure and

almost unintelligible style; the latter-, a portion of private

history, in the noblest style in the world. Whoever made the

comparison, I will do them the justice to believe that they

understood bad Greek better than their own language in its

elevation.

For Dr. Jortin's Erasmus, which I have very nearly finished, it

has given me a good opinion of the author, and he has given me

a very bad one of his subject. By the Doctor's labour and

impartiality, Erasmus appears a begging parasite, who had parts

enough to discover truth, and not courage enough to profess it:

whose vanity made him always writing; yet Ills writings ought

to have cured his vanity, as they were the most abject things

in the world. Good Erasmus's honest mean was alternate

time-serving. I never had thought much about him, and now

heartily despise him.

When I speak my opinion to you, Sir, about what I dare say you

care as little for as I do, (for what is the merit of a mere

man of letters?) it is but fit I should answer you as sincerely

on a question about which you are so good as to interest

yourself. that my father's life is likely to be written, I

have no grounds for believing. I mean I know nobody that

thinks of it. For myself, I certainly shall not, for many

reasons, which you must have the patience to hear. A reason to

me myself is, that I think too highly of him, and too meanly of

myself, to presume I am equal to the task. They who do not

agree with me in the former part of my position, will

undoubtedly allow the latter part. In the next place, the very

truths that I should relate would be so much imputed to

partiality, that he would lose of his due praise by the

suspicion of my prejudice. In the next place, I was born too

late in his life to be acquainted with him in the active part

of it. Then I was at school, at the university, abroad, and

returned not till the last moments of his administration. What

I know of him I could only learn from his own mouth in the last

three years of his life; when, to my shame, I was so idle, and

young, and thoughtless, that I by no means profited of his

leisure as I might have done; and, indeed, I have too much

impartiality in my nature to care, if I could, to give the

world a history, collected solely from the person himself of

whom I should write. With the utmost veneration for his truth,

I can easily conceive, that a man who had lived a life of

party, and who had undergone such persecution from party,

should have had greater bias than he himself could be sensible

of. The last, and that a reason which must be admitted, if all

the others are not--his papers are lost. Between the confusion

of his affairs, and the indifference of my elder brother to

things of that sort, they were either lost, burnt, or what we

rather think, were stolen by a favourite servant of my brother,

who proved a great rogue, and was dismissed in my brother's

life; and the papers were not discovered to be missing till

after my brother's death. Thus, Sir, I should want vouchers

for many things I could say of much importance. I have another

personal reason that discourages me from attempting this task,

or any other, besides the great reluctance that I have to being

a voluminous author. Though I am by no means the learned man

you are so good as to call me in compliment; though, on the

contrary, nothing can be more superficial than my knowledge, or

more trifling than my reading,--yet, I have so much strained my

eyes, that it is often painful to me to read even a newspaper

by daylight. In short, Sir, having led a very dissipated life,

in all the hurry of the world of pleasures scarce ever read,

but by candlelight, after I have come home late at nights. As

my eyes have never had the least inflammation or humour, I am

assured I may still recover them by care and repose. I own I

prefer my eyes to any thing I could ever read, much more to any

thing I could write. However, after all I have said, perhaps I

may now and then, by degrees, throw together some short

anecdotes of my father's private life and particular story, and

leave his public history to more proper and more able hands, if

such will undertake it. Before I finish on this chapter, I can

assure you he did forgive my Lord Bolingbroke(975)--his nature

was forgiving: after all was over, and he had nothing to fear

or disguise, I can say with truth, that there were not three

men of whom he ever dropped a word with rancour. What I meant

of the clergy not forgiving Lord Bolingbroke, alluded not to

his doctrines, but to the direct attack and war he made on the

whole body. And now, Sir, I will confess my own weakness to

you. I do not think so highly of that writer, as I seem to do

in my book; but I thought it would be imputed to prejudice in

me, if I appeared to undervalue an author of whom so many

persons of sense still think highly. My being Sir Robert

Walpole's son warped me to praise, instead of censuring, Lord

Bolingbroke. With regard to the Duke of Leeds, I think you

have misconstrued the decency of my expression. I said, Burnet

had treated him severely; that is, I chose that Burnet should

say so, rather than myself. I have never praised where my

heart condemned. Little attentions, perhaps, to worthy

descendants, were excusable in a work of so extensive a nature,

and that approached so near to these times. I may, perhaps,

have an opportunity at one day or other of showing you some

passages suppressed on these motives, which yet I do not intend

to destroy.

Crew, Bishop of Durham, was is abject a tool as possible. I

would be very certain he is an author before I should think him

worth mentioning. If ever you should touch on Lord

Willoughby's sermon, I should be obliged for a hint of it. I

actually have a printed copy of verses by his son, on the

marriage of the Princess Royal; but they are so ridiculously

unlike measure, and the man was so mad and so poor,(976) that I

determined not to mention them.

If these details, Sir, which I should have thought interesting

to no mortal but myself', should happen to amuse you, I shall

be glad; if they do not, you will learn not to question a man

who thinks it his duty to satisfy the curiosity of men of sense

and honour, and who, being of too little consequence to have

secrets, is not ambitious of the less consequence of appearing

to have any.

P. S. I must ask you one question, but to be answered entirely

at your leisure. I have a play in rhyme called Saul, said to

be written by a peer. I guess Lord Orrery. If ever you happen

to find out, be so good to tell me.

(974) It is evident that Mr. Walpole has here transposed,

contrary to his meanings the references to lord Clarendon and

Polybius: the latter wrote the general history, the former the

portion of history.-C.

(975) This alludes to an epigrammatic passage in the article

"Bolingbroke" in the Noble Authors. "He wrote against Sir

Robert Walpole, who did forgive him; and against the clergy,

who never will forgive him."@.

(976) this seems a singular reason for excluding him from a

list of authors@-C.

462 Letter 291

To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, Oct. 24, 1758.

I am a little sorry that my preface, like the show-cloth to a

sight, entertained you more than the bears it invited you in to

see. I don't mean that I am not glad to have written any thing

that meets your approbation, but if Lord Whitworth's work is

not better than my preface, I fear he has much less merit than

I thought he had.

Your complaint of your eyes makes me feel for you: mine have

been very weak again, and I am taking the bark, which did them

so much service last year. I don't know how to give up the

employment of them, I mean reading; for as to writing, I am

absolutely winding up my bottom, for twenty reasons. The

first, and perhaps the best, I have writ enough. The next; by

what I have writ, the world thinks I am not a fool, which was

just what I wished them to think, having always lived in terror

of that oracular saying Ermu naidex luchoi, which Mr. Bentley

translated with so much more parts than the vain and malicious

hero could have done that set him the task, --I mean his

father, the sons of heroes are loobies. My last reason is, I

find my little stock of reputation very troublesome, both to

maintain and to undergo the consequences--it has dipped me in

erudite correspondences--I receive letters every week that

compliment my learning; now, as there is nothing I hold so

cheap as a learned man, except an unlearned one, this title Is

insupportable to me; if' I have not a care, I shall be called

learned, till somebody abuses me for not being learned, as

they, not I, fancied I was. In short, I propose to have

nothing more to do with the world, but divert myself in it as

an obscure passenger--pleasure, virt`u, politics, and

literature, I have tried them all, and have had enough of them.

Content and tranquillity, with now and then a little of three

of them, that I may not grow morose, shall satisfy the rest of

a life that is to have much idleness, and I hope a little

goodness; for politics--a long adieu! With some of the Cardinal

de Retz's experience, though with none of his genius, I see the

folly of taking a violent part without any view, (I don't mean

to commend a violent part with a view, that is still worse;) I

leave the state to be scrambled for by Mazarine, at once

cowardly and enterprising, ostentatious, jealous, and false; by

Louvois, rash and dark; by Colbert, the affecter of national

interest, with designs not much better; and I leave the Abb`e

de la Rigbi`ere to sell the weak Duke of Orleans to whoever has

money to buy him, or would buy him to get money; at least these

are my present reflections--if I should change them to-morrow,

remember I am not only a human creature, but that I am I, that

is, one of the weakest of human creatures, and so sensible of

my fickleness that I am sometimes inclined to keep a diary of

my mind, as people do of the weather. To-day you see it

temperate, to-morrow it may again blow politics and be stormy;

for while I have so much quicksilver left, I fear my

passionometer will be susceptible of sudden changes. What do

years give one? Experience; experience, what? Reflections;

reflections, what? nothing that I ever could find--nor can I

well agree with Waller, that

"The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,

Lets in new light through chinks that time has made."

Chinks I am afraid there are, but instead of new light, I find

nothing but darkness visible, that serves only to discover

sights of Wo. I look back through my chinks--I find errors,

follies, faults; forward, old age and death, pleasures fleeting

from me, no virtues succeeding to their place--il faut avouer,

I want all my quicksilver to make such a background receive any

other objects!

I am glad Mr. Frederick Montagu thinks so well of me as to be

sure I shall be glad to see him without an invitation. For

you, I had already perceived that you would not come to

Strawberry this year. Adieu!

463 Letter 292

To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 24, 1758.

It is a very melancholy present I send you here, my dear Sir;

yet, considering the misfortune that has befallen us, perhaps

the most agreeable I could send you. You will not think it the

bitterest tear you have shed when you drop one over this plan

of an urn inscribed with the name of your dear brother, and

with the testimonial of my eternal affection to him! This

little monument is at last placed over the pew of your family

at Linton, and I doubt whether any tomb was ever erected that

spoke so much truth of the departed, and flowed from so much

sincere friendship in the living. The thought was my own,

adopted from the antique columbaria, and applied to Gothic.

The execution of the design was Mr. Bentley's, who alone, of

all mankind, could unite the grace of Grecian architecture and

the irregular lightness and solemnity of Gothic. Kent and many

of our builders sought this, but have never found it. Mr.

Chute, who has as much taste @s Mr. Bentley, thinks this little

sketch a perfect model. The soffite is more beautiful than any

thing of either style separate. There is a little error in the

inscription; it should be Horatius Walpole posuit. The urn is

of marble, richly polished; the rest of stone. On the whole, I

think there is simplicity and decency, with a degree of

ornament that destroys neither.

What do you say in Italy on the assassination of the King of

Portugal? Do you believe that Portuguese subjects lift their

hand against a monarch for gallantry? Do you believe that when

a slave murders an absolute prince, he goes a walking with his

wife the next morning and murders her too'! Do you believe the

dead King is alive? and that the Jesuits are as wrongfully

suspected of this assassination as they have been of many

others they have committed? If you do believe this, and all

this, you are not very near turning Protestants. It is scarce

talked of here, and to save trouble, we admit just what the

Portuguese minister is ordered to publish. The King of

Portugal murdered, throws us two hundred years back--the King

of Prussia not murdered, carries us two hundred years forward

again.

Another King, I know, has had a little blow: the Prince de

Soubise has beat some Isenbourgs and Obergs, and is going to be

Elector of Hanover this winter. There has been a great

sickness among our troops in the other German army; the Duke of

Marlborough has been in great danger, and some officers are

dead. Lord Frederick Cavendish is returned from France. He

confirms and adds to the amiable accounts we had received of

the Duc d'Aiguillon's behaviour to our prisoners. You

yourself, the pattern of attentions and tenderness, could not

refine on what he has done both in good-nature and

good-breeding: he even forbad any ringing of bells or

rejoicings wherever they passed--but how your representative

blood will curdle when you hear of the absurdity of one of your

countrymen: the night after the massacre at St. Cas, the Duc

d'Aiguillon gave a magnificent supper of eighty covers to our

prisoners--a Colonel Lambert got up at the bottom of the table,

and asking for a bumper, called out to the Duc, "My Lord Duke,

here's the Roy de France!" You must put all the English you

can crowd into the accent. My Lord Duke was so confounded at

this preposterous compliment, which it was impossible for him

to return, that he absolutely sank back into his chair and

could not utter a syllable: our own people did not scorn to

feel more.

You will read and hear that we have another expedition sailing,

somewhither in the West Indies. Hobson, the commander, has in

his whole life had but one stroke of a palsy, so possibly may

retain half of his understanding at least. There is great

tranquillity at home, but I should think not promising

duration. The disgust in the army on the late frantic measures

will furnish some warmth probably to Parliament--and if the

French should think of returning our visits, should you wonder?

There are even rumours of some stirring among your little

neighbours at Albano--keep your eye on them--if you could

discover any thing in time, it would do you great credit.

Apropos to them,, I will send you an epigram that I made the

other day on Mr. Chute's asking why Taylor the oculist called

himself Chevalier.