STRAWBERRY HILL, _April_ 15, 1768.
Mr. Chute tells me that you have taken a new house in Squireland, and
have given yourself up for two years more to port and parsons. I am very
angry, and resign you to the works of the devil or the church, I don't
care which. You will get the gout, turn Methodist, and expect to ride to
heaven upon your own great toe. I was happy with your telling me how
well you love me, and though I don't love loving, I could have poured
out all the fulness of my heart to such an old and true friend; but what
am I the better for it, if I am to see you but two or three days in the
year? I thought you would at last come and while away the remainder of
life on the banks of the Thames in gaiety and old tales. I have quitted
the stage, and the Clive[1] is preparing to leave it. We shall neither
of us ever be grave: dowagers roost all around us, and you could never
want cards or mirth. Will you end like a fat farmer, repeating annually
the price of oats, and discussing stale newspapers? There have you got,
I hear, into an old gallery, that has not been glazed since Queen
Elizabeth, and under the nose of an infant Duke and Duchess, that will
understand you no more than if you wore a ruff and a coif, and talk to
them of a call of Serjeants the year of the Spanish Armada! Your wit and
humour will be as much lost upon them, as if you talked the dialect of
Chaucer; for with all the divinity of wit, it grows out of fashion like
a fardingale. I am convinced that the young men at White's already laugh
at George Selwyn's _bon mots_ only by tradition. I avoid talking before
the youth of the age as I would dancing before them; for if one's tongue
don't move in the steps of the day, and thinks to please by its old
graces, it is only an object of ridicule, like Mrs. Hobart in her
cotillon. I tell you we should get together, and comfort ourselves with
reflecting on the brave days that we have known--not that I think people
were a jot more clever or wise in our youth than they are now; but as my
system is always to live in a vision as much as I can, and as visions
don't increase with years, there is nothing so natural as to think one
remembers what one does not remember.
[Footnote 1: Mrs. Clive was a celebrated comic actress and wit, and a
near neighbour of Walpole at Twickenham.]
[Illustration: STRAWBERRY HILL, FROM THE NORTH-WEST.]
I have finished my Tragedy ["The Mysterious Mother"], but as you would
not bear the subject, I will say no more of it, but that Mr. Chute, who
is not easily pleased, likes it, and Gray, who is still more difficult,
approves it. I am not yet intoxicated enough with it to think it would
do for the stage, though I wish to see it acted; but, as Mrs.
Pritchard[1] leaves the stage next month, I know nobody could play the
Countess; nor am I disposed to expose myself to the impertinences of
that jackanapes Garrick, who lets nothing appear but his own wretched
stuff, or that of creatures still duller, who suffer him to alter their
pieces as he pleases. I have written an epilogue in character for the
Clive, which she would speak admirably: but I am not so sure that she
would like to speak it. Mr. Conway, Lady Aylesbury, Lady Lyttelton, and
Miss Rich, are to come hither the day after to-morrow, and Mr. Conway
and I are to read my play to them; for I have not strength enough to go
through the whole alone.
[Footnote 1: Mrs. Pritchard was the most popular tragic actress of the
day. Churchill gives her high praise--
In spite of outward blemishes, she shone
For humour fam'd, and humour all her own.
("Rosciad," 840.)]
My press is revived, and is printing a French play written by the old
President Hénault.[1] It was damned many years ago at Paris, and yet I
think is better than some that have succeeded, and much better than any
of our modern tragedies. I print it to please the old man, as he was
exceedingly kind to me at Paris; but I doubt whether he will live till
it is finished. He is to have a hundred copies, and there are to be but
a hundred more, of which you shall have one.
[Footnote 1: M. Hénault was President of the Parliament of Paris. His
tragedy was "Cornelie." He died in 1770, at the age of eighty-six.]
Adieu! though I am very angry with you, I deserve all your friendship,
by that I have for you, witness my anger and disappointment. Yours ever.
P.S.--Send me your new direction, and tell me when I must begin to use
it.
_CASE OF WILKES._