STRAWBERRY HILL, _Nov._ 24, 1774.
... A great event happened two days ago--a political and moral event;
the sudden death of that second Kouli Khan, Lord Clive.[1] There was
certainly illness in the case; the world thinks more than illness. His
constitution was exceedingly broken and disordered, and grown subject to
violent pains and convulsions. He came unexpectedly to town last Monday,
and they say, ill. On Tuesday his physician gave him a dose of laudanum,
which had not the desired effect. On the rest, there are two stories;
one, that the physician repeated the dose; the other, that he doubled it
himself, contrary to advice. In short, he has terminated at fifty a life
of so much glory, reproach, art, wealth, and ostentation! He had just
named ten members for the new Parliament.
[Footnote 1: Lord Clive had committed suicide in his house in Berkeley
Square. As he was passing through his library his niece, who was writing
a letter, asked him to mend a pen for her. He did it, and, passing on
into the next room, cut his throat with the same knife he had just used.
It is remarkable that, when little more than a youth, he had once tried
to destroy himself. In a fit, apparently of constitutional melancholy,
he had put a pistol to his head, but it did not go off. He pulled the
trigger more than once; always with the same result. Anxious to see
whether there was any defect in the weapon or the loading, he aimed at
the door of the room, and the pistol went off, the bullet going through
the door; and from that day he conceived himself reserved by Providence
for great things, though in his most sanguine confidence he could never
have anticipated such glory as he was destined to win.]
Next Tuesday that Parliament is to meet--and a deep game it has to play!
few Parliaments a greater. The world is in amaze here that no account is
arrived from America of the result of their General Congress--if any is
come it is very secret; and _that_ has no favourable aspect. The
combination and spirit there seem to be universal, and is very alarming.
I am the humble servant of events, and you know never meddle with
prophecy. It would be difficult to descry good omens, be the issue what
it will.
The old French Parliament is restored with great _éclat_.[1] Monsieur de
Maurepas, author of the revolution, was received one night at the Opera
with boundless shouts of applause. It is even said that the mob
intended, when the King should go to hold the _lit de justice_,[2] to
draw his coach. How singular it would be if Wilkes's case should be
copied for a King of France! Do you think Rousseau was in the right,
when he said that he could tell what would be the manners of any capital
city from certain given lights? I don't know what he may do on
Constantinople and Pekin--but Paris and London! I don't believe Voltaire
likes these changes. I have seen nothing of his writing for many months;
not even on the poisoning Jesuits. For our part, I repeat it, we shall
contribute nothing to the _Histoire des Moeurs_, not for want of
materials, but for want of writers. We have comedies without novelty,
gross satires without stings, metaphysical eloquence, and antiquarians
that discover nothing.
Boeotûm in crasso jurares aere natos!
[Footnote 1: In 1770 the Chancellor, Maupéou, had abolished the
Parliament, as has been mentioned in a former note. Their conduct ever
since the death of Richelieu had been factious and corrupt. But, though
the Sovereign Courts, which Maupéou had established in their stead, had
worked well, their extinction had been unpopular in Paris; and, on the
accession of Louis XVI., the new Prime Minister, Maurepas, proposed
their re-establishment, and the Queen, most unfortunately, was persuaded
by the Duc de Choiseul to exert her influence in support of the measure.
Turgot, the great Finance Minister--indeed, the greatest statesman that
France ever produced--resisted it with powerful arguments, but Louis
yielded to the influence of his consort. The Parliaments were
re-established, and soon verified all the predictions of Turgot by
conduct more factious and violent than ever. (See the Editor's "France
under the Bourbons," iii. 413.)]
[Footnote 2: A _Lit de Justice_ was an extraordinary meeting of the
Parliament, presided over by the sovereign in person, and one in which
no opposition, or even discussion, was permitted; but any edict which
had been issued was at once registered.]
Don't tell me I am grown old and peevish and supercilious--name the
geniuses of 1774, and I submit. The next Augustan age will dawn on the
other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at
Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a
Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit
England and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul's, like the
editions of Balbec and Palmyra; but am I not prophesying, contrary to my
consummate prudence, and casting horoscopes of empires like Rousseau?
Yes; well, I will go and dream of my visions.
_29th._
... The Parliament opened just now--they say the speech talks of the
_rebellion_ of the Province of Massachusetts; but if _they-say_ tells a
lie, I wash my hands of it. As your gazetteer, I am obliged to send you
all news, true or false. I have believed and unbelieved everything I
have heard since I came to town. Lord Clive has died every death in the
parish register; at present it is most fashionable to believe he cut his
throat. That he is dead, is certain; so is Lord Holland--and so is not
the Bishop of Worcester [Johnson]; however, to show you that I am at
least as well informed as greater personages, the bishopric was on
Saturday given to Lord North's brother--so for once the Irishman was in
the right, and a pigeon, at least a dove, can be in two places at once.
_RIOTS AT BOSTON--A LITERARY COTERIE AT BATH--EASTON._