ARLINGTON STREET, _Feb._ 18, 1768.
You have sent me a long and very obliging letter, and yet I am extremely
out of humour with you. I saw _Poems_ by _Mr. Gray_ advertised: I called
directly at Dodsley's to know if this was to be more than a new edition?
He was not at home himself, but his foreman told me he thought there
were some new pieces, and notes to the whole. It was very unkind, not
only to go out of town without mentioning them to me, without showing
them to me, but not to say a word of them in this letter. Do you think I
am indifferent, or not curious about what you write? I have ceased to
ask you, because you have so long refused to show me anything. You could
not suppose I thought that you never write. No; but I concluded you did
not intend, at least yet, to publish what you had written. As you did
intend it, I might have expected a month's preference. You will do me
the justice to own that I had always rather have seen your writings than
have shown you mine; which you know are the most hasty trifles in the
world, and which though I may be fond of the subject when fresh, I
constantly forget in a very short time after they are published. This
would sound like affectation to others, but will not to you. It would be
affected, even to you, to say I am indifferent to fame. I certainly am
not, but I am indifferent to almost anything I have done to acquire it.
The greater part are mere compilations; and no wonder they are, as you
say, incorrect, when they are commonly written with people in the room,
as "Richard"[1] and the "Noble Authors" were. But I doubt there is a
more intrinsic fault in them: which is, that I cannot correct them. If I
write tolerably, it must be at once; I can neither mend nor add. The
articles of Lord Capel and Lord Peterborough, in the second edition of
the "Noble Authors," cost me more trouble than all the rest together:
and you may perceive that the worst part of "Richard," in point of ease
and style, is what relates to the papers you gave me on Jane Shore,
because it was tacked on so long afterwards, and when my impetus was
chilled. If some time or other you will take the trouble of pointing out
the inaccuracies of it, I shall be much obliged to you: at present I
shall meddle no more with it. It has taken its fate: nor did I mean to
complain. I found it was condemned indeed beforehand, which was what I
alluded to. Since publication (as has happened to me before) the success
has gone beyond my expectation.
[Footnote 1: He is here alluding to his own very clever essay, entitled
"Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of Richard III." It failed to
convince Hume; but can hardly be denied to be a singularly acute
specimen of historical criticism. It does not, indeed, prove Richard to
have been innocent of all the crimes imputed to him; but it proves
conclusively that much of the evidence by which the various charges are
supported is false. In an earlier letter he mentions having first made
"a discovery, one of the most marvellous ever made. In short, it is the
original Coronation Roll of Richard, by which it appears that very
magnificent robes were ordered for Edward V., and that he did or was to
walk at his uncle's coronation." The letter, from which this passage is
an extract, was to a certain extent an answer to one from Gray, who,
while praising the ingenuity of his arguments, avowed himself still
unconvinced by them.]
Not only at Cambridge, but here, there have been people wise enough to
think me too free with the King of Prussia! A newspaper has talked of my
known inveteracy to him. Truly, I love him as well as I do most kings.
The greater offence is my reflection on Lord Clarendon. It is forgotten
that I had overpraised him before. Pray turn to the new State Papers,
from which, _it is said_, he composed his history. You will find they
are the papers from which he did _not_ compose his history. And yet I
admire my Lord Clarendon more than these pretended admirers do. But I do
not intend to justify myself. I can as little satisfy those who complain
that I do not let them know what _really did_ happen. If this inquiry
can ferret out any truth, I shall be glad. I have picked up a few more
circumstances. I now want to know what Perkin Warbeck's Proclamation
was, which Speed in his history says is preserved by Bishop Leslie. If
you look in Speed perhaps you will be able to assist me.
The Duke of Richmond and Lord Lyttelton agree with you, that I have not
disculpated Richard of the murder of Henry VI. I own to you, it is the
crime of which in my own mind I believe him most guiltless. Had I
thought he committed it, I should never have taken the trouble to
apologize for the rest. I am not at all positive or obstinate on your
other objections, nor know exactly what I believe on many points of this
story. And I am so sincere, that, except a few notes hereafter, I shall
leave the matter to be settled or discussed by others. As you have
written much too little, I have written a great deal too much, and think
only of finishing the two or three other things I have begun--and of
those, nothing but the last volume of Painters is designed for the
present public. What has one to do when turned fifty, but really think
of _finishing_?
I am much obliged and flattered by Mr. Mason's approbation, and
particularly by having had almost the same thought with him. I said,
"People need not be angry at my excusing Richard; I have not diminished
their fund of hatred, I have only transferred it from Richard to Henry."
Well, but I have found you close with Mason--No doubt, cry prating I,
something will come out....[1]
[Footnote 1: "_Something will come out._" Walpole himself points out in
a note that this is a quotation from Pope: "I have found him close with
Swift." "Indeed?" "No doubt, (Cries prating Balbus) something will come
out" (Prologue to the "Satires").]
Pray read the new Account of Corsica.[1] What relates to Paoli will
amuse you much. There is a deal about the island and its divisions that
one does not care a straw for. The author, Boswell, is a strange being,
and, like Cambridge, has a rage of knowing anybody that ever was talked
of. He forced himself upon me at Paris in spite of my teeth and my
doors, and I see has given a foolish account of all he could pick up
from me about King Theodore.[2] He then took an antipathy to me on
Rousseau's account, abused me in the newspapers, and exhorted Rousseau
to do so too: but as he came to see me no more, I forgave all the rest.
I see he now is a little sick of Rousseau himself; but I hope it will
not cure him of his anger to me. However, his book will I am sure
entertain you.
[Footnote 1: Boswell, Dr. Johnson's celebrated biographer, had taken
great interest in the affairs of Corsica, which, in this year (1768),
Choiseul, the Prime Minister of France, had bought of Genoa, to which
State it had long belonged. Paoli was a Corsican noble, who had roused
his countrymen to throw off the domination of Genoa; and, on the arrival
of French troops to take possession of their purchase, he made a
vigorous resistance to the French General, the Comte de Marboeuf; but
eventually he was overpowered, and forced to fly. He took refuge in
England, where George III. granted him a pension, which he enjoyed till
his death in 1807, when he was buried in Westminster Abbey. One of his
relations was M. Charles Buonaparte, the father of Napoleon, who was
only prevented from accompanying him in his abandonment of Corsica by
the persuasion of his uncle, the Archdeacon of Ajaccio. Boswell, who was
apt to be enthusiastic in his hero-worship and anxiety for new
acquaintances (whom, it must be admitted, he commonly chose with
judgement, if with little dignity), introduced him to Johnson, who also
conceived a high regard for him, and on one occasion remarked that "he
had the loftiest port of any man he had ever seen."]
[Footnote 2: After several outbreaks within a few years, the Corsicans
in 1736 embarked in a revolt so formal and complete that they
altogether threw off their allegiance to Genoa, and chose as their king
Theodore Neuhof, a Westphalian baron. But Cardinal Fleury, the French
Prime Minister, from a belief that Theodore was an instrument of
Walpole, lent the Genoese a force of three thousand men, which at last
succeeded in crushing the insurrection and expelling Theodore. (See the
Editor's "France under the Bourbons," iii. 157.) Theodore is one of the
six ex-kings whom, in Voltaire's "Candide," his hero met at a hotel in
Venice during the carnival, when he gave a melancholy account of his
reverse of fortune. "He had been called 'Your Majesty;' now he can
hardly find any one to call him 'Sir.' He had coined money; now he has
not a penny of his own. He had had two Secretaries of State; now he has
but one valet. He had sat on a throne; but since that time he had laid
on straw in a London prison." In fact, his state was so doleful, that
the other ex-kings subscribed twenty sequins apiece to buy him some
coats and shirts ("Candide," c. 26).]
I will add but a word or two more. I am criticised for the expression
_tinker up_ in the preface. Is this one of those that you object to? I
own I think such a low expression, placed to ridicule an absurd instance
of wise folly, very forcible. Replace it with an elevated word or
phrase, and to my conception it becomes as flat as possible.
George Selwyn says I may, if I please, write Historic Doubts on the
present Duke of G[loucester] too. Indeed, they would be doubts, for I
know nothing certainly.
Will you be so kind as to look into Leslie "De Rebus Scotorum," and see
if Perkin's Proclamation is there, and if there, how authenticated. You
will find in Speed my reason for asking this. I have written in such a
hurry, I believe you will scarce be able to read my letter--and as I
have just been writing French, perhaps the sense may not be clearer than
the writing. Adieu!
_WILKES IS RETURNED M.P. FOR MIDDLESEX--RIOTS IN LONDON--VIOLENCE OF
THE MOB._