STRAWBERRY HILL, _June_ 20, 1766.
I don't know when I shall see you, but therefore must not I write to
you? yet I have as little to say as may be. I could cry through a whole
page over the bad weather. I have but a lock of hay, you know, and I
cannot get it dry, unless I bring it to the fire. I would give
half-a-crown for a pennyworth of sun. It is abominable to be ruined in
coals in the middle of June.
What pleasure have you to come! there is a new thing published, that
will make you burst your cheeks with laughing. It is called the "New
Bath Guide."[1] It stole into the world, and for a fortnight no soul
looked into it, concluding its name was its true name. No such thing. It
is a set of letters in verse, in all kind of verses, describing the life
at Bath, and incidentally everything else; but so much wit, so much
humour, fun, and poetry, so much originality, never met together before.
Then the man has a better ear than Dryden or Handel. _Apropos_ to
Dryden, he has burlesqued his St. Cecilia, that you will never read it
again without laughing. There is a description of a milliner's box in
all the terms of landscape, _painted lawns and chequered shades_, a
Moravian ode, and a Methodist ditty, that are incomparable, and the best
names that ever were composed. I can say it by heart, though a quarto,
and if I had time would write it you down; for it is not yet reprinted,
and not one to be had.
[Footnote 1: By Christopher Anstey. "Have you read the 'New Bath Guide'?
It is the only thing in fashion, and is a new and original kind of
humour. Miss Prue's conversation I doubt you will paste down, as Sir W.
St. Quintyn did before he carried it to his daughter; yet I remember you
all read 'Crazy Tales' without pasting" (_Gray to Wharton.--Works by
Mitford_, vol. iv. p. 84).]
There are two new volumes, too, of Swift's Correspondence, that will not
amuse you less in another way, though abominable, for there are letters
of twenty persons now alive; fifty of Lady Betty Germain, one that does
her great honour, in which she defends her friend my Lady Suffolk, with
all the spirit in the world,[1] against that brute, who hated everybody
that he hoped would get him a mitre, and did not. There is one to his
Miss Vanhomrigh, from which I think it plain he lay with her,
notwithstanding his supposed incapacity, yet not doing much honour to
that capacity, for he says he can drink coffee but once a week, and I
think you will see very clearly what he means by coffee. His own journal
sent to Stella during the four last years of the Queen, is a fund of
entertainment. You will see his insolence in full colours, and, at the
same time, how daily vain he was of being noticed by the Ministers he
affected to treat arrogantly. His panic at the Mohocks is comical; but
what strikes one, is bringing before one's eyes the incidents of a
curious period. He goes to the rehearsal of "Cato," and says the _drab_
that acted Cato's daughter could not say her part. This was only Mrs.
Oldfield. I was saying before George Selwyn, that this journal put me in
mind of the present time, there was the same indecision, irresolution,
and want of system; but I added, "There is nothing new under the sun."
"No," said Selwyn, "nor under the grandson."
[Footnote 1: The letter dated Feb. 8, 1732-3.]
My Lord Chesterfield has done me much honour: he told Mrs. Anne Pitt
that he would subscribe to any politics I should lay down. When she
repeated this to me, I said, "Pray tell him I have laid down politics."
I am got into puns, and will tell you an excellent one of the King of
France, though it does not spell any better than Selwyn's. You must have
heard of Count Lauragais, and his horse-race, and his quacking his horse
till he killed it.[1] At his return the King asked him what he had been
doing in England? "Sire, j'ai appris à penser"--"Des chevaux?"[2]
replied the King. Good night! I am tired and going to bed. Yours ever.
[Footnote 1: In a previous letter Walpole mentioned that the Count and
the English Lord Forbes had had a race, which the Count lost; and that,
as his horse died the following night, surgeons were employed to open
the body, and they declared he had been poisoned. "The English," says
Walpole, "suspect that a groom, who, I suppose, had been reading Livy or
Demosthenes, poisoned it on patriotic principles to secure victory to
his country. The French, on the contrary, think poison as common as oats
or beans in the stables at Newmarket. In short, there is no impertinence
which they have not uttered; and it has gone so far that two nights ago
it was said that the King had forbidden another race which was appointed
for Monday between the Prince de Nassau and a Mr. Forth, to prevent
national animosities."]
[Footnote 2: Louis pretending to think he had said _pansen_.]
_BATH--WESLEY._