fruit-shop? whether the peeresses are to wear long, or short tresses at the coronation? how many jewels Lady Harrington borrows of actresses? All this is your light summer wear for conversation; and if my memory were as much stuffed with it as my ears, I might have sent you Volumes last week. My nieces, Lady Waldegrave and Mrs. Keppel, were here five days, and discussed the claim or disappointment of every miss in the kingdom for maid of honour. Unfortunately this new generation is not at all my affair. I cannot attend to what Concerns them. Not that their trifles are less important than those of one’s own time, but my mould has taken all its impressions, and can receive no more. I must grow old upon the stock I have. I, that was so impatient at all their chat, the moment they were gone, flew to my Lady Suffolk, and heard her talk with great satisfaction of the late Queen’s coronation-petticoat. The preceding age always appears respectable to us (I mean as one advances in years), one’s own age interesting, the coming age neither one nor t’other.
You may judge by this account that I have writ all my letters, or ought to have written them; and yet, for occasion to blame Me, you draw a very pretty picture of my situation: all which tends to prove that I ought to write to you every day, whether I have any thing to say or not. I am writing, I am building–both works that will outlast the memory of battles and heroes! Truly, I believe, the one will as much as t’other. My buildings are paper, like my writings, and both will be blown away in ten years after I am dead; if they had not the substantial use of amusing me while I live, they would be worth little indeed. I will give you one instance that will sum up the vanity of great men, learned men, and buildings altogether. I heard lately, that Dr. Pearce, a very learned personage, had consented to let the tomb of Aylmer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, a very great personage, be removed for Wolfe’s monument; that at first he had objected, but was wrought upon by being told that hight Aylmer was a knight templar, a very wicked set of people, as his lordship had heard, though he knew nothing of them, as they are not mentioned by Longinus. I own I thought this a made story, and wrote to his lordship, expressing my concern that one of the finest and most ancient monuments in the abbey should be removed, and begging, if it was removed, that he would bestow it on me, who would erect and preserve it here. After a fortnight’s deliberation, the bishop sent me an answer, civil indeed, and commending my zeal for antiquity! but avowing the story under his own hand. He said, that at first they had taken Pembroke’s tomb for a knight templar’s. Observe, that not only the man who shows the tombs names it every day, but that there is a draught of it at large in Dart’s Westminster; that upon discovering whose it was, he had been very unwilling to consent to the removal, and at last had obliged Wilton to engage to set it up within ten feet of where it stands at present. His lordship concluded with congratulating me on publishing learned authors at my press. don’t wonder that a man who thinks Lucan a learned author, should mistake a tomb in his own cathedral. If I had a mind to be angry, I could complain with reason; as, having paid forty pounds for ground for my mother’s tomb, that the Chapter of Westminster sell their church over and over again; the ancient monuments tumble upon one’s head through their neglect, as one of them did, and killed a man at Lady Elizabeth Percy’s funeral; and they erect new waxen dolls of Queen Elizabeth, etc. to draw visits and money from the mob. I hope all this history is applicable to some part or other of my letter; but letters you will have, and so I send you one, very like your own stories that you tell your daughter-. There was a King, and he had three daughters, and they all went to see the tombs; and the youngest, -who was in love with Aylmer de Valence, etc.
Thank you for your account of the battle; thank Prince Ferdinand for giving you a very Honourable post, which, in spite of his teeth and yours, proved a very safe one; and above all, thank Prince Soubise, whom I love better than all the German Princes in the universe. Peace, I think, we must have at last, if you beat the French, or at least hinder them from beating you, and afterwards starve them. Bussy’s last last courier is expected; but as he may have a last last last courier, I trust more to this than to all the others. He was complaining t’other day to Mr. Pitt of our haughtiness, and said it would drive the French to some desperate effort, “Thirty thousand men,” continued he, “would embarrass you a little, I believe!” “Yes,” replied Pitt, “for I am so embarrassed with those we have already, I don’t know what to do with them.”
Adieu! Don’t fancy that the more you scold, the more I will write: it has answered three times, but the next cross word you give me shall put an end to our correspondence. Sir Horace Mann’s father used to say, “Talk, Horace, you have been abroad:”- -You cry, “Write, Horace, you are at home.” No, Sir. you can beat an hundred and twenty thousand French, but you cannot get the better of me. I will not write such foolish letters as this every day, when I have nothing to say. Yours as you behave.
(180) George Fitzroy, afterwards created Lord Southampton.
Letter 89 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Aug. 20, 1761. (page 142)
A few lines before you go; your resolutions are good, and give me great pleasure; bring them back unbroken; I have no mind to lose you; we have been acquainted these thirty years, and to give the devil his due, in all that time I never knew a bad, a false, a mean, or ill-natured thing in the devil–but don’t tell him I say so, especially as I cannot say the same of myself. I am now doing a dirty thing, flattering you to preface a commission. Dickey Bateman(181) has picked up a whole cloister full of old chairs in Herefordshire. He bought them one by one, here and there in farmhouses, for three-and-sixpence, and a crown apiece. They are of’ wood, the seats triangular, the backs, arms, and legs loaded with turnery. A thousand to one but there are plenty up and down Cheshire too. If Mr. and Mrs. Wetenhall, as they ride or drive out would now and then pick up such a chair, it would oblige me greatly. Take notice, no two need be of the same pattern.
Keep it as the secret of your life; but if your brother John addresses himself to me a day or two before the coronation, I can place him well to see the procession: when it is over, I will give you a particular reason why this must be such a mystery. I was extremely diverted t’other day with my mother’s and my old milliner; she said she had a petition to me–“What is it, Mrs. Burton?” “It Is in behalf of two poor orphans.” I began to feel for my purse. “What can I do for them, Mrs. Burton?” “Only if your honour would be so compassionate as to get them tickets for the coronation.” I could not keep my countenance, and these distressed orphans are two and three-and-twenty! Did you ever hear a more melancholy case?
The Queen is expected on Monday. I go to town on Sunday. Would these shows and your Irish journey were over, and neither of us a day the poorer!
I am expecting Mr. Chute to hold a chapter on the cabinet. A barge-load of niches, window-frames, and ribs, is arrived. The cloister is paving, the privy garden making, painted glass adjusting to the windows on the back stairs – with so many irons in the fire, you may imagine I have not much time to write. I wish you a safe and pleasant voyage.
(181) Richard Bateman, brother of Viscount Bateman. In Sir Charles Hanbury Williams’s Poems he figures as “Constant Dickey.”-E.
Letter 90 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Arlington Street, Tuesday morning. (page 143)
My dear lord,
Nothing was ever equal to the bustle and uncertainty of the town for these three days. The Queen was seen off the coast of Sussex on Saturday last, and is not arrived yet-nay, last night at ten o’clock it was neither certain when she landed, nor when she would be in town. I forgive history for knowing nothing, when so public an event as the arrival of a new Queen is a mystery even at the very moment in St. James’s Street. The messenger that brought the letter yesterday morning, said she arrived ,it half an hour after four at Harwich. This was immediately translated into landing, and notified in those words to the ministers. Six hours afterwards it proved no such thing, and that she was only in Harwich-road; and they recollected that an hour after four happens twice in twenty-four hours, and the letter did not specify which of the twices it was. Well! the bridemaids whipped on their virginity; the new road and the parks were thronged; the guns were choking with impatience to go off; and Sir James Lowther, who was to pledge his Majesty was actually married to Lady Mary Stuart.(182) Five, six, seven, eight o’clock came, and no Queen–She lay at Witham at Lord Abercorn’s, who was most tranquilly in town; and it is not certain even whether she will be composed enough to be in town to-night. She has been sick but half an hour; sung and played on the harpsicord all the voyage, and been cheerful the whole time. The coronation will now certainly not be put off-so I shall have the pleasure of seeing you on the 15th. The weather is close and sultry; and if the wedding is to-night, we shall all die.
They have made an admirable speech for the Tripoline ambassador that he said he heard the King had sent his first eunuch to fetch the Princess. I should think he meaned Lord Anson.
You will find the town over head and ears in disputes about rank, and precedence, processions, entr`ees, etc. One point, that of the Irish peers, has been excellently liquidated: Lord Halifax has stuck up a paper in the coffee-room at Arthur’s, importing, , That his Majesty, not having leisure to determine a point of such great consequence, permits for this time such Irish peers as shall be at the marriage to walk in the procession.” Every body concludes those personages will understand this order as it is drawn up in their own language; otherwise it is not very clear how they are to walk to the marriage, if they are at it before they come to it.
Strawberry returns its duty and thanks for all your lordship’s goodness to it, and though it has not got its wedding-clothes yet, will be happy to see you. Lady Betty Mackenzie is the individual woman she was–she seems to have been gone three years, like the Sultan in the Persian Tales, who popped his head into a tub of water, pulled it up again, and fancied he had been a dozen years in bondage in the interim. She is not altered a tittle. Adieu, my dear lord!
Twenty minutes past three in the afternoon, not in the middle of the night.
Madame Charlotte is this instant arrived. The noise of coaches, chaises, horsemen, mob, that have been to see her pass through the parks, is so prodigious that I cannot distinguish the guns. I am going to be dressed, and before seven shall launch into the crowd. Pray for me!
(182) Eldest daughter of the Earl of Bute.-E.
Letter 91 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, Sept. 9, 1761. (page 144)
The date of my promise is now arrived, and I fulfil it–fulfil it with great satisfaction, for the Queen is come; and I have seen her, have been presented to her–and may go back to Strawberry. For this fortnight I have lived upon the road between Twickenham and london: I came, grew inpatient, returned; came again, still to no purpose. The yachts made the coast of Suffolk last Saturday, on Sunday entered the road of Harwich, and on Monday morning the King’s chief eunuch, as the Tripoline ambassador calls Lord Anson, landed the Princess. She lay that night at Lord Abercorn’s at Whitham, the palace of silence; and yesterday at a quarter after three arrived at St. James’s. In half an hour one heard nothing but proclamations of her beauty: every body was content, every body pleased. At seven one went to court. The night was sultry. About ten the procession began to move towards the chapel, and at eleven they all came up into the drawing-room. She looks very sensible, cheerful, and is remarkably genteel. Her tiara of diamonds was very pretty, her stomacher sumptuous; her violet-velvet mantle and ermine so heavy, that the spectators knew as much of her upper half as the King himself. You will have no doubts of her sense by what I shall tell you. On the road they wanted to curl her toupet; she said she thought it looked as well as that of any of the ladies sent to fetch her; if the King bid her, she would wear a periwig, otherwise she would remain as she was. When she caught the first glimpse of the palace, she grew frightened and turned pale; the Duchess of Hamilton smiled–the Princess said, “My dear Duchess, you may laugh, you have been married twice, but it is no joke to me.” Her lips trembled as the coach stopped, but she jumped out with spirit, and has done nothing but with good-humour and cheerfulness. She talks a great deal–is easy, civil, and not disconcerted. At first, when the bridemaids and the court were introduced to her, she said, “Mon Dieu, il y en a tant, il y en a tant!” She was pleased when she was to kiss the peeresses; but Lady Augusta was forced to take her hand and give it to those that were to kiss it, which was prettily humble and good-natured. While they waited for supper, she sat down, sang, and played. Her French is tolerable, she exchanged much both of that and German with the King, and the Duke of York. They did not get to bed till two. To-day was a drawing-room: every body was presented to her; but she spoke to nobody, as she could not know a soul. The crowd was much less than at a birthday, the magnificence very little more. The King looked very handsome, and talked to her continually with great good-humour.- It does not promise as if they two would be the two most unhappy persons in England, from this event. The bridemaids, especially Lady Caroline Russel, Lady Sarah Lenox, and Lady Elizabeth Keppel, were beautiful figures. With neither features nor air, Lady Sarah was by far the chief angel. The Duchess of Hamilton was almost in possession of her former beauty today: and your other Duchess, your daughter, was much better dressed than ever I saw her. Except a pretty Lady Sutherland, and a most perfect beauty, an Irish Miss Smith,(183) I don’t think the Queen saw much else to discourage her: my niece,(184) Lady Kildare, Mrs. Fitzroy, were none of them there. There is a ball to-night, and two more drawing-rooms; but I have done with them. The Duchess of Queensbury and Lady Westmoreland were in the procession, and did credit to the ancient nobility.
You don’t presume to suppose, I hope, that we are thinking of you, and wars, and misfortunes, and distresses, in these festival times. Mr. Pitt himself Would be mobbed if he talked of any thing but clothes, and diamonds, and bridemaids. Oh! yes, we have wars, civil wars; there is a campaign opened in the bedchamber. Every body is excluded but the ministers; even the lords of the bedchamber, cabinet counsellors, and foreign ministers: but it has given such offence that I don’t know whether Lord Huntingdon must not be the scapegoat. Adieu! I am going to transcribe most of this letter to your Countess.
(183) Afterwards married to Lord Llandaff.
(184) The Countess of Waldegrave.
Letter 92 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Sept. 24, 1761. (page 145)
I am glad you arrived safe in Dublin, and hitherto like it so well; but your trial is not begun yet. When your King comes;, the ploughshares will be put into the fire. Bless your stars that your King is not to be married or crowned. All the vines of Bordeaux, and all the fumes of Irish brains cannot make a town so drunk as a regal wedding and coronation. I am going to let London cool, and will not venture into it again this fortnight. O! the buzz, the prattle, the crowds, the noise, the hurry! Nay, people are so little come to their senses, that though the coronation was but the day before yesterday, the Duke of Devonshire had forty messages yesterday, desiring tickets for a ball, that they fancied was to be at court last night. People had sat up a night and a day, and yet wanted to see a dance. If I was to entitle ages, I would call this the century of crowds. For the coronation, if a puppet-show could be worth a million, that is. The multitudes, balconies, guards, and processions, made Palace-yard the liveliest spectacle in the world – the hall was the most glorious. The blaze of lights, the richness and variety of habits, the ceremonial, the benches of peers, and peeresses, frequent and full, was as awful as a pageant can be -. and yet for the King’s sake and my own, I never wish to see another; nor am impatient to have my Lord Effingham’s promise fulfilled. The King complained that so few precedents were kept for their proceedings. Lord Effingham owned, the earl marshal’s office had been strangely neglected; but he had taken such care for the future, that the next coronation would be regulated in the most exact manner imaginable. The number of peers and peeresses present was not very great; some of the latter, with no excuse in the world, appeared in Lord Lincoln’s gallery, and even walked about the hall indecently in the intervals of the procession. My Lady Harrington, covered with all the diamonds she could borrow, hire, or seize, and with the air of Roxann, was the finest figure at a distance; she complained to George Selwyn that she was to walk with Lady Portsmouth, who would have a wig and a stick–“Pho,” said he, “you will only look as if you were taken up by the constable.” She told this everywhere, thinking the reflection was on my Lady Portsmouth. Lady Pembroke, alone at the head of the countesses, was the picture of majestic modesty; the Duchess of Richmond as pretty as nature and dress, with no pains of her own, could make her; Lady Spencer, Lady Sutherland, and Lady Northampton, very pretty figures. Lady Kildare, still beauty itself, if not a little too large. The ancient peeresses were by no means the worst party: Lady Westmoreland, still handsome, and with more dignity than all; the Duchess of Queensbury looked well, though her locks were milk-white; Lady Albemarle very genteel; nay, the middle age had some good representatives in lady Holderness, Lady Rochford, and Lady Strafford, the perfectest little figure of all. My Lady Suffolk ordered her robes, and I dressed part of her head, as I made some of my Lord Hertford’s dress; for you know, no profession comes amiss to me, from a tribune of the people to a habit-maker. Don’t imagine that there were not figures as excellent on the other side: old Exeter, who told the King he was the handsomest man she ever saw; old Effingham and a Lady Say and Seale, with her hair powdered and her tresses black, were in excellent contrast to the handsome. Lord B * * * * put on rouge upon his wife and the Duchess of Bedford in the painted chamber; the Duchess of Queensbury told me of the latter, that she looked like an orange-peach, half red, and half yellow. The coronets of the peers and their robes disguised them strangely; it required all the beauty of the Dukes of Richmond and Marlborough to make them noticed. One there was, though of another species, the noblest figure I ever saw, the high-constable of Scotland, Lord Errol; as one saw him in a space capable of containing him, one admired him. At the wedding, dressed in tissue, he looked like one of the giants in Guildhall, new gilt. It added to the energy of his person, that one considered him acting so considerable a part in that very hall, where so few years ago one saw his father, Lord Kilmarnock, condemned to the block. The champion acted his part admirably, and dashed down his gauntlet with proud defiance. His associates, Lord Effingham, Lord Talbot, and the Duke of Bedford, were woful: Lord Talbot piqued himself on his horse backing down the hall, and not turning its rump towards the King; but he had taken such pains to dress it to that duty, that it entered backwards, and at his retreat the spectators clapped, a terrible indecorum, but suitable to such Bartholomew-fair doings. He had twenty demel`es and came out of none creditably. He had taken away the table of the knights of the Bath, and was forced to admit two in their old place, and dine the others in the court of requests. Sir William Stanhope said, “We are ill-treated, for some of us are gentlemen.” beckford told the Earl, it was hard to refuse a table to the city of london Whom it would cost ten thousand pounds to banquet the King, and his lordship would repent it if they had not a table in the Hall; they had. To the barons of the Cinque-ports, who made the same complaint, he said, “If you come to me as lord-steward, I tell you it is impossible; if, as Lord Talbot, I am a match for any of you:” and then he said to Lord Bute, “If I were a minister, thus I would talk to France, to Spain, to the Dutch–none of your half measures.” This has brought me to a melancholy topic. Bussy goes tomorrow, a Spanish war is hanging in the air, destruction is taking a new lease of mankind–of the remnant of mankind. I have no prospect of seeing Mr. Conway. Adieu! I will not disturb you with my forebodings. You I shall see again in spite of war, and I trust in spite of Ireland. I was much disappointed at not seeing your brother John: I kept a place for him to the last minute, but have heard nothing of him. Adieu!
Letter 93 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, Sept. 25, 1761. (page 147)
This is the most unhappy day I have known of years: Bussy goes away! Mankind is again given up, to the sword! Peace and you are far from England!
Strawberry Hill.
I was interrupted this morning, just as I had begun my letter, by Lord Waldegrave; and then the Duke of Devonshire sent for me to Burlington-house to meet the Duchess of Bedford, and see the old pictures from Hardwicke. If my letter reaches you three days later, at least you are saved from a lamentation. Bussy has put off his journey to Monday (to be sure, you know this is Friday): he says this is a strange country, he can get no Waggoner to carry his goods on a Sunday. I am Clad a Spanish war waits for a conveyance, and that a wagoner’s veto is as good as a tribune’s of Rome, and can stop Mr. Pitt on his career to Mexico. He was going post to conquer it–and Beckford, I suppose, would have had a contract for remitting all the gold, of which Mr. Pitt never thinks, unless to serve a city friend. It is serious that we have discussions with Spain, who says France is humbled enough, but must not be ruined: Spanish gold is actually coining in frontier towns of France; and the privilege which Biscay and two other provinces have of fishing on the coast of Newfoundland, has been demanded for all Spain. It was refused peremptorily; and Mr. Secretary Cortez(185) insisted yesterday se’nnight on recalling Lord Bristol.(186) The rest of the council, who are content with the world they have to govern, without conquering Others, prevailed to defer this impetuosity. However, if France or Spain are the least untractable, a war is inevitable: nay, if they don’t submit by the first day of the session, I have no doubt but Mr. Pitt will declare it himself on the address. I have no opinion of Spain intending it: they give France money to protract a war, from which they reap such advantages in their peaceful capacity; and I should think would not give their money if they were on the point of having occasion for it themselves. In spite of you, and all the old barons our ancestors, I pray that we may have done with glory, and would willingly burn every Roman and Greek historian who have don nothing but transmit precedents for cutting throats.
The coronation is over: ’tis even a more gorgeous sight than I imagined. I saw the procession and the hall; but the return was in the dark. In the morning they had forgot the sword of state, the chairs for King and Queen, and their canopies. They used the Lord Mayor’s for the first, and made the last in the hall so they did not set forth till noon; and then, by a childish compliment to the King, reserved the illumination of the hall till his entry; by which means they arrived like a funeral, nothing being discernible but the plumes of the knights of the Bath, which seemed the hearse. Lady Kildare the Duchess of Richmond, and Lady Pembroke were the capital beauties. Lady Harrington, the finest figure at a distance; old Westmoreland, the most majestic. Lady Hertford could not walk, and indeed I think is in a way to give us great anxiety. She is going to Ragley to ride. Lord Beauchamp was one of the King’s train-bearers. Of all the incidents of the day, the most diverting was what happened to the Queen. She had a retiring-chamber, with all conveniences, prepared behind the altar. She went thither–in the most convenient what found she, but–the Duke of Newcastle! Lady Hardwicke died three days before the Ceremony, Which kept away the whole house of Yorke. Some of the peeresses were dressed overnight, slept in armchairs, and were waked if they tumbled their heads. Your sister Harris’s maid, Lady Peterborough, was a comely figure. My Lady Cowper refused, but was forced to walk with Lady Macclesfield. Lady Falmouth was not there on which George Selwyn said, “that those peeresses who were most used to walk, did not.” I carried my Lady Townshend, Lady Hertford, Lady Anne Connolly, my Lady Hervey, and Mrs. Clive, to my deputy’s house at the gate of Westminster-hall. My Lady Townshend said she should be very glad to see a coronation, as she never had seen one. “Why,” said I, “Madam, you walked at the last?” “Yes, child,” said she, “but I saw nothing of it: I only looked to see who looked at me.” The Duchess of Queensbury walked! her affectation that day was to do nothing preposterous. The Queen has been at the Opera, and says she will go once a week. This is a fresh disaster to our box, where we have lived so harmoniously for three years. We can get no alternative but that over Miss Chudleigh’s; and Lord Strafford and Lady Mary Coke will not subscribe, unless we can. The Duke of Devonshire and I are negotiating with all our -art to keep our party together. The crowds at the Opera and play when the King and Queen go, are a little greater than what I remember. The late royalties went to the Haymarket, when it was the fashion to frequent the other opera in Lincoln’s-inn-fields. Lord Chesterfield one night came into the latter, and was asked, if he had been at the other house? “Yes,” said he, “but there was nobody but the King and Queen; and as I thought they might be talking business, I came away.”
Thank you for your journals: the best route you can send me in would be of your Journey homewards. Adieu!
P. S. If you ever hear from, or write to, such a person as Lady Ailesbury, pray tell her she is worse to me in point of correspondence than ever you said I was to you, and that she sends me every thing but letters!
(185) Mr. Pitt, then secretary of state.
(186) The English ambassador at the court of Madrid.
Letter 94 To The Countess Of Ailesbury. Strawberry Hill, Sept. 27, 1761. (page 149)
You are a mean mercenary woman. If you did not want histories of weddings and coronations, and had not jobs to be executed about muslins, and a bit of china, and counterband goods, one should never hear of you. When you don’t want a body, you can frisk about with greffiers and burgomasters. and be as merry in a dyke as my lady frog herself. The moment your curiosity is agog, or your cambric seized, you recollect a good cousin in England, and, as folks said two hundred years ago, begin to write “upon the knees of your heart.” Well! I am a sweet-tempered creature, I forgive you. I have already writ to a little friend in the customhouse, and will try what can be done; however, by Mr. Amyand’s report to the Duchess of Richmond, I fear your case is desperate. For the genealogies, I have turned over all my books to no purpose; I can meet with no Lady Howard that married a Carey, nor a Lady Seymour that married a Canfield. Lettice Canfield, who married Francis Staunton, was a daughter of Dr. James (not George) Canfield, younger brother of the first Lord Charlemont. This is all I can ascertain. For the other pedigree; I can inform your friend that there was a Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, who married an Anne Carew, daughter of Sir Nicholas Carew, knight of the garter, not Carey. But the Sir Nicholas Carew married Joan Courtney–not a Howard: and besides, the Careys and Throckmortons you wot of were just the reverse, your Carey was the cock, and Throckmorton the hen-mine are vice versa:–otherwise, let me tell your friend, Carews and Courtneys are worth Howards any day of the week, and of ancienter blood;- -so, if descent is all he wants, I advise him to take up with the pedigree as I have refitted it. However, I will cast a figure once more, and try if I can conjure up the dames Howard and Seymour that he wants.
My heraldry was much more offended at the coronation with the ladies that did walk, than with those that walked out of their place; yet I was not so perilously angry as my Lady Cowper, who refused to set a foot with my Lady Macclesfield; and when she was at last obliged to associate with her, set out on a round trot, as if she designed to prove the antiquity of her family by marching as lustily as a maid of honour of Queen Gwiniver. It was in truth a brave sight. The sea of heads in palace-yard, the guards, horse and foot, the scaffolds, balconies, and procession, exceeded imagination. The hall, when once illuminated, was noble; but they suffered the whole parade to return in the dark, that his Majesty might be surprised with the quickness with which the sconces catched fire. The champion acted well; the other Paladins had neither the grace nor alertness of Rinaldo. Lord Effingham and the Duke of Bedford were but untoward knights errant; and Lord Talbot had not much more dignity than the figure of General Monk in the abbey. The habit of the peers is unbecoming to the last degree; but the peeresses made amends for all defects. Your daughter Richmond, Lady Kildare, and Lady Pembroke were as handsome as the Graces. Lady Rochford, Lady Holderness, and Lady Lyttelton looked exceedingly well in that their day; and for those of the day before, the Duchess of Queensbury, Lady Westmoreland, and Lady Albemarle were surprising. Lady Harrington was noble at a distance, and so covered with diamonds, that you would have thought she had bid somebody or other, like Falstaff, rob me the exchequer. Lady Northampton was very magnificent too, and looked prettier than I have seen her of late. Lady Spencer and Lady Bolingbroke were not the worst figures there. The Duchess of Ancaster marched alone after the Queen with much majesty; and there were two new Scotch peeresses that pleased every body, Lady Sutherland and Lady Dunmore. Per contra, were Lady P * * *, who had put a wig on, and old E * * * *, who had scratched hers off, Lady S * * *, the Dowager E * * *, and a Lady Say and Sele, with her tresses coal-black, and her hair coal-white. Well! it was all delightful, but not half so charming as its being over. The gabble one heard about it for six weeks before, and the fatigue of the day, could not well be compensated by a mere puppet-show; for puppet-show it was, though it cost a million. The Queen is so gay that we shall not want sights; she has been at the Opera, the Beggar’s Opera and the Rehearsal, and two nights ago carried the King to Ranelagh. In short, I am so miserable with losing my Duchess,(187) and you and Mr. Conway, that I believe, if you should be another six weeks without writing to me, I should come to the Hague and scold you in person–for, alas! my dear lady, I have no hopes of seeing you here. Stanley is recalled, is expected every hour. Bussy goes tomorrow ; and Mr. Pitt is so impatient to conquer Mexico, that I don’t believe he will stay till my Lord Bristol can be ordered to leave Madrid. I tremble lest Mr. Conway should not get leave to come–nay, are we sure he would like to ask it? he was so impatient to get to the army, that I should not be surprised if he stayed there till every suttler and woman that follows the camp was come away. You ask me if we are not in admiration of Prince Ferdinand. In truth, we have thought very little of him. He may outwit Broglio ten times, and not be half so much talked of as lord Talbot’ backing his horse down Westminster-hall. The generality are not struck with any thing under a complete victory. If you have a mind to be well with the mob of England, you must be knocked on the head like Wolfe, or bring home as many diamonds as Clive. We live in a country where so many follies or novelties start forth every day, that we have not time to try a (general’s capacity by the rules of Polybius.
I have hardly left room for my obligations-to your ladyship, for my commissions at Amsterdam; to Mrs. Sally,(188) for her teapots, which are to stay so long at the Hague, that I fear they will have begot a whole set of china; and to Miss Conway and Lady George, for thinking of me. Pray assure them of my re-thinking. Adieu, dear Madam! Don’t You think we had better write oftener and shorter.
(187) The Duchess of Grafton, who was abroad.
(188) Lady Ailesbury’s woman.
Letter 95 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Oct. 8, 1761. (page 151)
I cannot swear I wrote to you again to offer your brother the place for the coronation; but I was Confident I did, nay, I think so still: my proofs are, the place remained vacant, and I sent to old Richard to inquire if Mr. John was not arrived. He had no great loss, as the procession returned in the dark.
Your King(189) will have heard that Mr. Pitt resigned last Monday.(190) Greater pains have been taken to recover him than were used to drive him out. He is inflexible, but mighty peaceable. Lord Egremont is to have the seals to-morrow. It is a most unhappy event–France and Spain will soon let us know we ought to think so. For your part, you will be invaded; a blacker rod than you will be sent to Ireland. Would you believe that the town is a desert’! The wedding filled it, the coronation crammed it; Mr. Pitt’s resignation has not brought six people to London. As they could not hire a window and crowd one another to death to see him give up the seals, it seems a matter of perfect indifference. If he will accuse a single man of checking our career of glory, all the world will come to see him hanged; but what signifies the ruin of a nation, if no particular man ruins it?
The Duchess of Marlborough died the night before last. Thank you for your descriptions; pray continue them. Mrs. Delany I know a little, Lord Charlemont’s villa is in Chambers’s book.(191)
I have nothing new to tell you; but the grain of mustard seed sown on Monday will soon produce as large a tree as you can find in any prophecy. Adieu!
P. S. Lady Mary Wortley is arrived.
(189) The Earl of Halifax, lord-lieutenant of Ireland.
(190) The following is Mr. Pitt’s own account of this transaction, in a letter to Alderman Beckford:–“A difference of opinion with regard to measures to be taken against Spain, of the highest importance to the Honour of the crown and to the most essential national interests, and this founded on what Spain had already done, not on what that court may further intend to do, was the cause of my resigning, the seals. Lord Temple and I submitted in writing, and urged our most humble sentiments to his Majesty; which being overruled by the united opinion of the rest of the King’s servants, I resigned, on Monday the 5th, in order not to remain responsible for measures which I was no longer allowed to guide.” Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 158.-E.
(191) Sir William Chambers’s “Treatise on Civil Architecture,” a work which Walpole describes as “the most sensible book, and the most exempt from prejudices, that was ever written on that science.” It first appeared in 1759. A fourth edition, edited by Mr. Gwin was published in 1825.-E.
letter 96 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 10, 1761. (page 152)
Pray, sir, how does virtue sell in Ireland now? I think for a province they have now and then given large prices. Have you a mind to know what the biggest virtue in the world is worth? If Cicero had been a drawcansir instead of a coward, and had carried the glory of Rome to as lofty a height as he did their eloquence, for how much do you think he would have sold all that reputation? Oh! sold it! you will cry, vanity was his predominant passion; he would have trampled on sesterces like dirt, and provided the tribes did but erect statues enough for him, he was content with a bit of Sabine mutton; he would have preferred his little Tusculan villa, or the flattery of Caius Atticus at Baia, to the wealth of Croesus, or to the luxurious banquets of Lucullus. Take care, there is not a Tory gentleman, if there is one left, who would not have laid the same wager twenty years ago on the disinterestedness of my Lord Bath. Come, u tremble, you are so incorrupt yourself you will give the world Mr. Pitt was so too. You adore him for what he has done for us; you bless him for placing England at the head of Europe, and you don’t hate him for infusing as much spirit into us, as if a Montague, Earl of Salisbury, was still at the head of our enemies. Nothing could be more just. We owe the recovery of our affairs to him, the splendour of our country, the conquest of Canada, Louisbourg, Guadaloupe, Africa, and the East. Nothing is too much for such services; accordingly, I hope you will not think the barony of Chatham, and three thousand pounds a-year for three lives too much for my Lady Hester. She has this pittance: good night!
P. S. I told you falsely in my last that Lady Mary Wortley was arrived–I cannot help it if my Lady Denbigh cannot read English in all these years, but mistakes Wrottesley for Wortley.
Letter 97 To The Countess Of Ailesbury. Strawberry Hill, Oct. 10, 1761. (page 153)
I don’t know what business I had, madam, to be an economist: it was out of’ character. I wished for a thousand more drawings in that sale at Amsterdam, but concluded they would be very dear; and not having seen them, I thought it too rash to trouble your ladyship with a large commission. I wish I could give you as good an account of your commission; but it is absolutely impracticable. I employed one of the most sensible and experienced men in the customhouse; and all the result was, he could only recommend me to Mr. Amyand as the newest, and consequently the most polite of the commissioners–but the Duchess of Richmond had tried him before–to no purpose. There is no way of recovering any of your goods, but purchasing them again at the sale.
What am I doing, to be talking to you of drawings and chintzes, when the world is all turned topsy-turvy! Peace, as the poets would say, is not only returned to heaven, but has carried her sister Virtue along with her!–Oh! no, peace will keep no such company–Virtue is an errant strumpet, and loves diamonds as well as my Lady Harrington, and is as fond of a coronet as my Lord Melcombe.(192) Worse! worse! She will set men to cutting throats, and pick their pockets at the same time. I am in such a passion, I cannot tell you what I am angry about–why, about Virtue and Mr. Pitt; two errant cheats, gipsies! I believe he was a comrade of Elizabeth Canning, when he lived at Enfield-wash. In short, the council were for making peace;
“But he, as loving his own pride, and purposes, Evades them with a bombast circumstance, horribly stuffed with epithets of war,
And in conclusion–nonsuits my mediators.”
He insisted on a war with Spain, was resisted, and last Monday resigned. The city breathed vengeance on his opposers, the council quailed, and the Lord knows what would have happened; but yesterday, which was only Friday, as this giant was stalking to seize the tower of London, he stumbled over a silver penny, picked it up, carried it home to Lady Hester, and they are now as quiet, good sort of people, as my Lord and Lady Bath who lived in the vinegar-bottle. In fact, Madam, this immaculate man has accepted the Barony of Chatham for his wife, with a pension of three thousand pounds a year for three lives; and though he has not quitted the House of Commons, I think my Lord Anson would now be as formidable there. The pension he has left us, is a war for three thousand lives! perhaps, for twenty times three thousand lives!–But–
“Does this become a soldier? this become Whom armies follow’d, and a people loved?”
What! to sneak out of the scrape, prevent peace, and avoid the war! blast one’s character, and all for the comfort of a Paltry annuity, a long-necked peeress, and a couple of Grenvilles! The city looks mighty foolish, I believe, and possibly even Beckford may blush. Lord Temple resigned yesterday: I suppose his virtue pants for a dukedom. Lord Egremont has the seals; Lord Hardwicke, I fancy, the privy seal; and George Grenville, no longer Speaker, is to be the cabinet minister in the House of Commons. Oh! Madam, I am glad you are inconstant to Mr. Conway, though it is only with a Barbette! If you piqued yourself on your virtue, I should expect you would sell it to the master of a Trechscoot.
I told you a lie about the King’s going to Ranelagh–No matter; there is no such thing as truth. Garrick exhibits the coronation, and, opening the end of the stage, discovers a real bonfire and real mob: the houses in Drury-lane let their windows at threepence a head. Rich is going to produce a finer coronation, nay, than the real one; for there is to be a dinner for the Knights of the Bath and the Barons of the Cinque-ports, which Lord Talbot refused them.
I put your Caufields and Stauntons into the hands of one of the first heralds upon earth, and who has the entire pedigree of the Careys; but he cannot find a drop of Howard or Seymour blood in the least artery about them. Good night, Madam!
(192) Bubb Doddington, having for many years placed his ambition on the acquisition of a coronet, obtained the long-wished-for prize in the preceding April.-E.
Letter 98 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Arlington Street, Oct. 12, 1761. (page 154)
It is very lucky that you did not succeed in the expedition to Rochfort. Perhaps you might have been made a peer; and as Chatham is a naval title, it might have fallen to your share. But it was reserved to crown greater glory: and lest it should not be substantial pay enough, three thousand pounds a year for three lives go along with it. Not to Mr. Pitt–you can’t suppose it. Why truly, not the title, but the annuity does, and Lady Hester is the baroness; that, if he should please, he may earn an earldom himself. Don’t believe me, if you have not a mind. I know I did not believe those who told me. But ask the gazette that swears it–ask the King, who has kissed Lady Hester–ask the city of London, who are ready to tear Mr. Pitt to pieces–ask forty people I can name, who are overjoyed at it–and then ask me again, who am mortified, and who have been the dupe of his disinterestedness. Oh, my dear Harry! I beg you on my knees, keep your virtue: do let me think there is still one man upon earth who despises money. I wrote you an account last week of his resignation. Could you have believed that in four days he would have tumbled from the conquest of Spain to receiving’ a quarter’s pension from Mr. West?(193) To-day he has advertised his seven coach-horses to be sold–Three thousand a year for three lives, and fifty thousand pounds of his own, will not keep a coach and six. I protest I believe he is mad, and Lord Temple thinks so too; for he resigned the same morning that Pitt accepted the pension. George Grenville is minister of the House of Commons. I don’t know who will be Speaker. They talk of Prowse, Hussey, Bacon, and even of old Sir John Rushout. Delaval has said an admirable thing: he blames Pitt not as you and I do; but calls him fool; and says, if he had gone into the city, told them he had a poor wife and children unprovided for, and had opened a subscription, he would have got five hundred thousand pounds, instead of three thousand pounds a year. In the mean time the good man has saddled us with a war which we can neither carry on nor carry off. ‘Tis pitiful! ’tis wondrous pitiful! Is the communication stopped, that we never hear from you? I own ’tis an Irish question. I am out of humour: my visions are dispelled, and you are still abroad. As I cannot put Mr. Pitt to death, at least I have buried him: here is his epitaph:
Admire his eloquence–it mounted higher Than Attic purity or Roman fire:
Adore his services-our lions view
Ranging, where Roman eagles never flew: Copy his soul supreme o’er Lucre’s sphere; –But oh! beware three thousand pounds a-year!(194)
October 13.
Jemmy Grenville resigned yesterday. Lord Temple is all hostility; and goes to the drawing-room to tell every body how angry he is with the court-but what is Sir Joseph Wittol, when Nol Bluff is pacific? They talk of erecting a tavern in the city, called The Salutation: the sign to represent Lord Bath and Mr. Pitt embracing. These are shameful times. Adieu!
(193) Secretary to the treasury.
(194) Gray also appears to have been greatly offended at this acceptance of the title and the pension: “Oh!” he exclaim, “that foolishest of great men, that sold his inestimable diamond for a paltry peerage and pension! The very night it happened was I swearing that it was a d-d lie, and never could be: but it was for want of reading Thomas `a Kempis, who knew mankind so much better than I.” Works, vol. iii. p. 265. Mr. Burke took a very different view of Mr. Pitt’s conduct on this occasion. “With regard to the pension and title, it is a shame,” he says, “that any defence should be necessary. What eye cannot distinguish, at the first glance, between this and the exceptionable case of titles and pensions? What Briton, with the smallest sense of honour and gratitude, but must blush for his country, if such a man retired unrewarded from the public service, let the motives for that retirement be what they would? It was not possible that his sovereign could let his eminent services pass unrequited: the sum that was given was inadequate to his merits; and the quantum was rather regulated by the moderation of the great mind that received it, than by the liberality of that which bestowed it.”- E.
Letter 99 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, October 24, 1761. (page 156)
I have got two letters from you, and am sensibly pleased with your satisfaction. I love your cousin for his behaviour to you; he will never place his friendship better. His parts and dignity, I did not doubt, would bear him out. I fear nothing but your spirits and the frank openness of your heart; keep them within bounds, and you will return in health, and with the serenity I wish you long to enjoy.
You have heard our politics; they do not mend, sick of glory, without being tired of war, and surfeited with unanimity before it had finished its work, we are running into all kinds of confusion. The city have bethought themselves, and have voted that they will still admire Mr. Pitt; consequently, be, without the cheek of seeming virtue, may do what he pleases. An address of thanks to hit-() has been carried by one hundred and nine against fifteen, and the city are to instruct their members; that is, because we are disappointed of a Spanish war, we must have one at home. Merciful! how old I am grown! here am I, not liking a civil war! Do you know me? I am no longer that Gracchus, who, when Mr. Bentley told him something or other, I don’t know what, would make a sect, answered quickly, “Will it make a party?” In short, I think I am always to be in contradiction; now I am loving my country.
Worksop(195) is burnt down; I don’t know the circumstances; the Duke and Duchess are at Bath; it has not been finished a month; the last furniture was brought in for the Duke of York; I have some comfort that I had seen it, and, except the bare chambers, in which the Queen of Scots lodged, nothing remained of ancient time.
I am much obliged to Mr. Hamilton’s civilities; but I don’t take too much to myself; yet it is no drawback to think that he sees an compliments your friendship for me. I shall use his permission of sending you any thing that I think will bear the sea; but how must I send it! by what conveyance to the sea, and where deliver it? Pamphlets swarm already; none very good, and chiefly grave; you would not have them. Mr. Glover has published his long-hoarded Medea,(196) as an introduction to the House of Commons; it had been more proper to usher him from school to the University. There are a few good lines, not much conduct, and a quantity of iambics, and trochaics, that scarce speak English, and yet have no rhyme to keep one another in countenance. If his chariot is stopped at Temple-bar, I suppose he will take it for the Straits of Thermopylae, and be delivered of his first speech before its time.
The catalogue of the Duke of Devonshire’s collection is only in the six volumes of the Description of London. I did print about a dozen, and gave them all away so totally that on searching, I had not reserved one for myself. When we are at leisure, I will reprint a few more, and you shall have one for your Speaker. I don’t know who is to be ours: Prowse, they say, has refused; Sir John Cust was the last I heard named: but I am here and know nothing; sorry that I shall hear any thing on Tuesday se’nnight.
Pray pick me up any prints of lord-lieutenants, Irish bishops, ladies –nay, or patriots; but I will not trouble you for a snuff-box or toothpick-case, made of a bit of the Giant’s Causeway.
My anecdotes of Painting will scarcely appear before Christmas. My gallery and cabinet are at a full stop till spring. but I shall be sorry to leave it all in ten days; October, that scarce ever deceived one before, has exhibited a deluge; but it was recovered, and promised to behave well as long as it lives, like a dying sinner. Good night!
P. S. My niece lost the coronation for only a daughter. It makes me smile, when I reflect that you are come into the world again, and that I have above half left it.
(195) The Duke of norfolk’s seat at Worksop Manor, Nottinghamshire, was burnt down on the 20th of October 1761. The damage was estimated at one hundred thousand pounds. When the Duke heard of it, he exclaimed, “God’s will be done!” and the Duchess, “How many besides us are sufferers by the like calamity!” Evelyn, who visited Worksop in 1654, says, “The manor belongs to the Earle of Arundel, and has to it a faire house at the foote of an hill, in a park that affords a delicate prospect.”-E.
(196) Glover’s tragedy of Medea was performed several times at Drury-lane and Covent-garden, for the benefit of Mrs. Yates, whose spirited acting Gave it considerable effect.-E.
Letter 100 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 26, 1761. (page 157)
and how strange it seems! You are talking to me of the King’s wedding, while we are thinking of a civil war. Why, the King’s wedding was a century ago, almost two months; even the coronation things that happened half an age ago, is quite forgot. The post to Germany cannot keep pace with our revolutions. Who knows but you may still be thinking that Mr. Pitt is the most disinterested man in the world? Truly, as far as the votes of a common-council can make him so, he is. Like Cromwell, he has always promoted the self-denying ordinance, and has contrived to be excused from it himself. The city could no longer choose who should be their man of virtue; there was not one left – by all rules they ought next to have pitched upon one who was the oldest offender: instead of that, they have reelected the most recent; and, as if virtue was a borough, Mr. Pitt is rechosen for it, on vacating his seat. Well, but all this is very serious: I shall offer a prophetic picture, and shall be very glad if I am not a true soothsayer. The city have voted an address of thanks to Mr. Pitt, and given instructions to their members; the chief articles of which are, to promote an inquiry into the disposal of the money that has been granted, and to consent to no peace, unless we are to retain all, or near all, our conquests. Thus the city of London usurp the right of making peace and war. But is the government to be dictated to by one town? By no means. But suppose they are not -what is the consequence? How will the money be raised? If it cannot be raised without them, Mr. Pitt must again be minister: that you think would be easily accommodated. Stay, stay; he and Lord Temple have declared against the whole cabinet council. Why, that they have done before now, and yet have acted with them again. It is very true; but a little word has escaped Mr. Pitt, which never entered into his former declarations; nay, nor into Cromwell’s, nor Hugh Capet’s, nor Julius Caesar’s, nor any reformer’s of ancient time. He has happened to say, he will guide. Now, though the cabinet council are mighty willing to be guided, when they cannot help it, yet they wish to have appearances saved: they cannot be fond of being told they are to be guided still less, that other people should be told so. Here, then, is Mr. Pitt and the common-council on one hand, the great lords on the other. I protest, I do not see but it will come to this. Will it allay the confusion, if Mr. Fox is retained on the side of the court? Here are no Whigs and Tories, harmless people, that are content with worrying one another for i hundred and fifty years together. The new parties are, I will, and you shall not; and their principles do not admit delay. However, this age is of suppler mould than some of its predecessors; and this may come round again, by a coup de baguette, when one least expects it. If it should not, the honestest part one can take is to look on, and try if one can do any good if matters go too far.
I am charmed with the Castle of Hercules;(197) it is the boldest pile I have seen since I travelled in Fairyland. You ought to have delivered a princess imprisoned by enchanters in his club: she, in gratitude, should have fallen in love with you; your constancy should have been immaculate. The devil knows how it would have ended–I don’t–and so I break off my romance.
You need not beer the French any more this year: it cannot be ascribed to Mr. Pitt; and the mob won’t thank you. If we are to have a warm campaign in Parliament, I hope you will be sent for. Adieu! We take the field tomorrow se’nnight.
P. S. You will be sorry to hear that Worksop is burned. My Lady Waldegrave has got a daughter, and your brother an ague.
(197) Alluding to a description of a building in Hesse Cassel, given by Mr. Conway in one of his letters.
Letter 101 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 7, 1761. (page 159)
You will rejoice to hear that your friend Mr. Amyand is going to marry the dowager Lady Northampton; she has two thousand pounds a-year, and twenty thousand in money. Old Dunch(198) is dead, and Mrs. Felton Hervey(199) was given over last night, but is still alive.
Sir John Cust is Speaker, and bating his nose, the chair seems well filled. There are so many new faces in this Parliament, that I am not at all acquainted with it.
The enclosed print will divert you, especially the baroness in the right-hand corner–so ugly, and so satisfied: the Athenian head was intended for Stewart; but was so like, that Hogarth was forced to cut off the nose. Adieu!
(198) Widow of Edmund Dunch, Esq. comptroller of the household of George the First.-E.
(199) Wife of the Hon. Felton Hervey, ninth son of John, first Earl of Bristol.-E.
Letter 102 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 28, 1761. (page 159)
I am much obliged for the notice of Sir Compton’s illness; if you could send me word of peace too, I should be completely satisfied on Mr. Conway’s account. He has been in the late action, and escaped, at a time that, I flattered myself, the campaign -was at an end. However, I trust it is now. You will have been concerned for young Courtney. The war, we hear, is to be transferred to these islands; most probably to yours. The black-rod I hope, like a herald, is a sacred personage.
There has been no authentic account of the coronation published; if there should be, I will send it. When I am at Strawberry, I believe I can make you out a list of those that walked; but I have no memorandum in town. If Mr. Bentley’s play is printed in Ireland, I depend on your sending me two copies.
There has been a very private ball at court, consisting of not above twelve or thirteen couple; some of the lords of the bedchamber, most of the ladies, the maids of honour, and six strangers, Lady Caroline Russell, Lady Jane Stewart, Lord Suffolk, Lord Northampton, Lord Mandeville, and Lord Grey. Nobody sat by, but the Princess, the Duchess of Bedford, and Lady Bute. They began before seven, danced till one, and parted without a supper.
Lady Sarah Lenox has refused Lord Errol; the Duke of Bedford is privy seal; Lord Thomond cofferer; Lord George Cavendish comptroller; George Pitt goes minister to Turin; and Mrs. Speed must go thither, as she is marrying the Baron de Perrier, Count Virry’s son.(200) Adieu! Commend me to your brother.
(200) “My old friend Miss SPeed has done what the world calls a very foolish thing; she has married the Baron de la Poyri`ere, son to the Sardinian minister, the Count de Viry. He is about twenty-eight years old (ten years younger than herself), but looks nearer This is not the effect of debauchery; for he is a very sober and good-natured man honest and no conjurer.” Gray to Wliarton. Works, vol. iii. p. 263.-E.
Letter 103 To The Countess Of Ailesbury. Arlington Street, Nov. 28, 1761. (page 160)
Dear Madam,
You are so bad and so good, that I don’t know how to treat you. You give me every mark of kindness but letting me hear from you. You send me charming drawings the moment I trouble you with a commission, and you give Lady Cecilia(201) commissions for trifles of my writing, in the most obliging manner. I have taken the latter off her hands.- The Fugitive Pieces, and the Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors shall be conveyed to you directly. Lady Cecilia and I agree how we lament the charming suppers there, every time we pass the corner of Warwick Street! We have a little comfort for your sake and our own, in believing that the campaign is at an end, at least for this year–but they tell us, it is to recommence here or in Ireland. You have nothing to do with that. Our politics, I think, will soon be as warm as our war. Charles Townshend is to be lieutenant-general to Mr. Pitt. The Duke of Bedford is privy seal; Lord Thomond, cofferer; Lord George Cavendish, comptroller.
Diversions, you know, Madam, are never at high watermark before Christmas: yet operas flourish pretty well: those on Tuesdays are removed to Mondays, because the Queen likes the burlettas, and the King cannot go on Tuesdays, his postdays. On those nights we have the middle front box railed in, where Lady Mary(202) and I sit in triste state like a Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress. The night before last there was a private ball at court, which began at half an hour after six, lasted till one, and finished without a supper. The King danced the whole time with the Queen, Lady Augusta with her four younger brothers. The other performers were: the two Duchesses of Ancaster and Hamilton, who danced little; Lady Effingham, and Lady Egremont who danced much; the six maids of honour; Lady Susan Stewart, as attending Lady Augusta; and Lady Caroline Russel, and Lady Jane Stewart, the only women not of the family. Lady Northumberland is at Bath; Lady Weymouth lies in; Lady Bolingbroke was there in Waiting, but in black gloves, so did not dance. The men, besides the royals, were Lords March and Lord Eglinton, of the bedchamber: Lord Cantalope, vice-chamberlain; Lord Huntingdon; and four strangers, Lord Mandeville, Lord Northampton, lord Suffolk, and lord Grey. No sitters-by, but the Princess, the Duchess of Bedford, and Lady Bute.
If it had not been for this ball, I don’t know how I should have furnished a decent letter. Pamphlets on Mr. Pitt are the whole conversation, and none of them worth sending cross the water: at least I, who am said to write some of them, think so; by which you may perceive I am not much flattered with the imputation. There must be new personages at least, before I write on any side. Mr. Pitt and the Duke of Newcastle! I should as soon think of informing the world that Miss Chudleigh is no vestal. You will like better to see some words which Mr. Gray has writ, at Miss Speed’s request, to an old air of Geminiani: the thought is from the French.
Thyrsis, when we parted, swore
Ere the spring he would return.
Ah! what means yon violet flower,
And the buds that deck the thorn?
‘Twas the lark that upward sprung,
‘Twas the nightingale that sung.
Idle notes! untimely green!
Why this unavailing haste?
Western gales and skies serene
Speak not always winter past.
Cease my doubts, my fears to move;
Spare the Honour of my love.
Adieu, Madam, your most faithful servant.
(201) Lady Cecilia Johnston.
(202) lady Mary Coke.
Letter 104 To Sir David Dalrymple.(203) Nov. 30, 1761. (page 161)
I am much obliged to you, Sir, for the specimen of letters(204) you have been so good as to send me. The composition is touching, and the printing very beautiful. I am still more pleased with the design of the work; nothing gives so just an idea of an age as genuine letters; nay, history waits for its last seal from them. I have an immense collection in my hands, chiefly of the very time on which you are engaged: but they are not my own.
If I had received your commands in summer when I was at Strawberry Hill, and at leisure, I might have picked you out something to your purpose; at present I have not time, from Parliament and business, to examine them: yet to show you, Sir, that I have great desire to oblige you and contribute to your work, I send you the following singular paper, which I have obtained from Dr. Charles lyttelton, Dean of Exeter, whose name I will beg you to mention in testimony of his kindness, and as evidence for the authenticity of the letter, which he copied from the original in the hands of Bishop Tanner, in the year 1733. It is from Anne of Denmark, to the Marquis of Buckingham.
“Anna R.,
“My kind dogge, if I have any power or credit with you, let me have a trial of it at this time, in dealing sincerely and earnestly with the King, that Sir Walter Raleigh’s life may not be called in question. If you do it, so that the success answer my expectation, assure yourself that I will take it extraordinarily kindly at your hands, and rest one that wisheth you well, and desires you to continue still as you have been, a true servant to your master.”
I have begun Mr. Hume’s history, and got almost through the first volume. It is amusing to one who ]knows a little of his own country, but I fear would not teach much to a beginner; details are so much avoided by him, and the whole rather skimmed than elucidated. I cannot say I think it very carefully performed. Dr. Robertson’s work I should expect would be more accurate.
P. S. There has lately appeared, in four little volumes, a Chinese Tale, called Hau Kiou Choaan,(205) not very entertaining from the incidents, but I think extremely so from the novelty of the manner and the genuine representation of their customs.
(203) Now first collected.
(204) Probably Sir David’s “Memorials and Letters relating to the History of Britain in the Reigns of James the First and Charles the First,” which were published in 1766, from the originals in the Advocates’ Library.-E.
(205) This pleasing little novel, in which the manners of the Chinese are painted to the life, was a translation from the Chinese by Mr. Wilkinson, and revised for publication by Dr. Percy.-E.
Letter 105 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 8, 1761. (page 162)
I return you the list of prints, and shall be glad you will bring me all to which I have affixed this mark X. The rest I have; yet the expense of the whole list would not ruin me. Lord Farnham, who, I believe, departed this morning, brings you the list of the Duke of Devonshire’s pictures.
I have been told that Mr. Bourk’s history was of England, not of Ireland; I am glad it is the latter, for I am now in Mr. Hume’s England, and would fain read no more. I not only know what has been written, but what would be written. Our story is so exhausted, that to make it new, they really make it new. Mr. Hume has exalted Edward the Second and depressed Edward the Third. The next historian, I suppose, will make James the First a hero, and geld Charles the Second.
Fingal is come out; I have not yet got through it; not but, it is very fine-yet I cannot at once compass an epic poem now. It tires me to death to read how many ways a warrior is like the moon, or the sun, or a rock, or a lion, or the ocean. Fingal is a brave collection of similes, and will serve all the boys at Eton and Westminster for these twenty years. I will trust you with a secret, but you must not disclose it; I should be ruined with my Scotch friends; in short, I cannot believe it genuine; I cannot believe a regular poem of six books has been preserved, uncorrupted, by oral tradition, from times before Christianity was introduced into the island. What! preserved unadulterated by savages dispersed among mountains, and so often driven from their dens, so wasted by wars civil and foreign! alas one man ever got all by heart? I doubt it; were parts preserved by some, other parts by others? Mighty lucky, that the tradition was never interrupted, nor any part lost-not a verse, not a measure, not the sense! luckier and luckier. I have been extremely qualified myself lately for this Scotch memory; we have had nothing but a coagulation of rains, fogs, and frosts, and though they have clouded all understanding, I suppose, if I had tried, I should have found that they thickened, and gave great consistence to my remembrance.
You want news–I must make it, if I send it. To change the dulness of the scene I went to the play, where I had not been this winter. They are so crowded, that though I went before six, I got no better place than a fifth row, where I heard very ill, and was pent for five hours without a soul near me that I knew. It was Cymbeline, and appeared to me as long as if every body in it went really to Italy in every act,, and came back again. With a few pretty passages and a scene or two, it is so absurd and tiresome, that I am persuaded Garrick(206) * * * * *
(206) The rest of this letter is lost.
Letter 106 To Sir David Dalrymple.(207) December 21, 1761. (page 163)
Your specimen pleases me, and I give you many thanks for promising me the continuation. You will, I hope, find less trouble with printers than I have done. Just when my book was, I thought, ready to appear, my printer ran away, and has left it very imperfect. This is the fourth I have tried, and I own it discourages me. Our low people are so corrupt and such knaves, that being cheated and disappointed are all the fruits of attempting to amuse oneself or others. Literature must struggle with many difficulties. They who print for profit print only for profit; we, who print to entertain or instruct others, are the bubbles of our designs, defrauded, abused, pirated–don’t you think, Sir, one need have resolution? Mine is very nearly exhausted.
(207) Now first collected.
Letter 107 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 23, 1761. Past midnight. (page 164)
I am this minute come home, and find such a delightful letter from you, that I cannot help answering it, and telling you so before I sleep. You need not affirm, that your ancient wit and pleasantry are revived; your letter is but five and twenty, and I will forgive any vanity, that is so honest, and so well founded. Ireland I see produces wonders of more sorts than one; if my Lord Anson was to go lord-lieutenant, I suppose he would return a ravisher. How different am I from this state of revivification! Even such talents as I had are far from blooming again; and while my friends, or contemporaries, or predecessors, are rising to preside over the fame of this age, I seem a mere antediluvian; must live upon what little stock of reputation I had acquired, and indeed grow so indifferent, that I can only wonder how those, whom I thought as old as myself, can interest themselves so much about a world, whose faces I hardly know. You recover your spirits and wit, Rigby is grown a speaker, Mr. Bentley a poet, while I am nursing one or two gouty friends, and sometimes lamenting that I am likely to survive the few I have left. Nothing tempts me to launch out again; every day teaches me how much I was mistaken in my own parts, and I am in no danger now but of thinking I am grown too wise; for every period of life has its mistake.
Mr. Bentley’s relation to Lord Rochester by the St. Johns is not new to me, and you had more reason to doubt of their affinity by the former marrying his mistress, than to ascribe their consanguinity to it. I shall be glad to see the epistle: are not “The Wishes” to be acted? remember me, if they are printed; and I shall thank you for this new list of prints.
I have mentioned names enough in this letter to lead me naturally to new ill usage I have received. Just when I thought my book finished, my printer ran away, and had left eighteen sheets in the middle of the book untouched, having amused me with sending proofs. He had got into debt, and two girls with child; being two, he could not marry two Hannahs. You see my luck; I had been kind to this fellow; in short, if the faults of my life had been punished as severely as my merits have been, I should be the most unhappy of beings; but let us talk of something else.
I have picked up at Mrs. Dunch’s auction the sweetest Petitot in the world-the very picture of James the Second, that he gave Mrs. Godfrey,(208) and I paid but six guineas and a half for it. I will not tell you how vast a commission I had given; but I will own, that about the hour of sale, I drove about the door to find what likely bidders there were. The first coach I saw was the Chudleighs; could I help concluding, that a maid of honour, kept by a duke, would purchase the portrait of a duke kept by a maid of honour-but I was mistaken. The Oxendens reserved the best pictures; the fine china, and even the diamonds, sold for nothing; for nobody has a shilling. We shall be beggars if we don’t conquer Peru within this half year.
If you are acquainted with my lady Barrymore, pray tell her that in less than two hours t’other night the Duke of Cumberland lost four hundred and fifty pounds at loo; Miss Pelham won three hundred, and I the rest. However, in general, loo is extremely gone to decay; I am to play at Princess Emily’s to-morrow for the first time this winter, and it is with difficulty she has made a party.
My Lady Pomfret is dead on the road to Bath; and unless the deluge stops, and the fogs disperse, I think we shall all die. A few days ago, on the cannon firing for the King going to the House, some body asked what it was? M. de Choiseul replied, “Apparemment, c’est qu’on voit le soleil.”
Shall I fill up the rest of my paper with some extempore lines that I wrote t’other night on Lady Mary Coke having St. Anthony’s fire in her cheek! You will find nothing in them to contradict what I have said in the former part of my letter; they rather confirm it.
No rouge you wear, nor can a dart
>From Love’s bright quiver wound your heart. And thought you, Cupid and his mother
Would unrevenged their anger smother? No, no, from heaven they sent the fire
That boasts St. Anthony its sire;
They pour’d it on one peccant part, Inflamed your cheek, if not your heart.
In vain-for see the crimson rise,
And dart fresh lustre through your eyes While ruddier drops and baffled pain
Enhance the white they mean to stain. Ah! nymph, on that unfading face
With fruitless pencil Time shall trace His lines malignant, since disease
But gives you mightier power to please.
Willis is dead, and Pratt is to be chief justice; Mr. Yorke attorney general; solicitor, I don’t know who. Good night! the watchman cries past one!
(208) Arabella Churchill, sister of the great Duke of Marlborough, was the mistress of James the Second while Duke of York, by whom she had four children; the celebrated Duke of Berwick, the Duke of Albemarle, and two daughters. She afterwards became the wife of Colonel Charles Godfrey, master of the jewel office, and died in 1714, leaving by him two daughters, Charlotte Viscountess Falmouth, and Elizabeth, wife of Edmund Dunch, Esq.-E.
Letter 108 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Dec. 30, 1761. (page 165)
I have received two more letters from You since I wrote last week, and I like to find by them that you are so well and so happy. As nothing has happened of change in my situation but a few more months passed, I have nothing to tell you new of myself. Time does not sharpen my passions or pursuits, and the experience I have had by no means prompts me to make new connexions. ‘Tis a busy world, and well adapted to those who love to bustle in it; I loved it once, loved its very tempests–now I barely open my windows to view what course the storm takes. The town, who, like the devil, when one has once sold oneself’ to him, never permits one to have done playing the fool, believe I have a great hand in their amusements; but to write pamphlets, I mean as a volunteer, one must love or hate, and I have the satisfaction of doing neither. I Would not be at the trouble of composing a distich to achieve a revolution. ‘Tis equal to me what names are on the scene. In the general view, the prospect is very dark: the Spanish war, added to the load, almost oversets our most sanguine heroism: and now we have in opportunity of conquering all the world, by being at war with all the world, we seem to doubt a little of our abilities. On a survey
of our situation, I comfort myself with saying, “Well, what is it to me?” A selfishness that is far from anxious, when it is the first thought in one’s constitution; not so agreeable when it is the last, and adopted by necessity alone.
You drive your expectations much too fast, in thinking my Anecdotes of Painting are ready to appear, in demanding three volumes. You will see but two, and it will be February first. True, I have written three, but I question whether the third will be published at all; certainly not soon; it is not a work of merit enough to cloy the town with a great deal at once. My printer ran away, and left a third part of the two first volumes unfinished. I suppose he is writing a tragedy himself, or an epistle to my Lord Melcomb, or a panegyric on my Lord Bute.
Jemmy Pelham(209) is dead, and has left to his servants what little his servants had left him. Lord Ligonier was killed by the newspapers, and wanted to prosecute them; his lawyer told him it was impossible–a tradesman indeed might prosecute, as such a report might affect his credit. “Well, then,” said the old man, “I may prosecute too, for I can prove I have been hurt by this ‘report I was going to marry a great fortune, who thought I was but seventy-four; the newspapers have said I am eighty, and she will not have me.”
Lord Charlemont’s Queen Elizabeth I know perfectly; he outbid me for it; is his villa finished? I am well pleased with the design in Chambers. I have been my out-of-town with Lord Waldecrave, Selwyn, and Williams; it was melancholy the missing poor Edgecombe, who was constantly of the Christmas and Easter parties. Did you see the charming picture Reynolds painted for me of him, Selwyn, and Gilly Williams? It is by far one of the best things he has executed. He has just finished a pretty whole-length of Lady Elizabeth Keppel,(210) in the bridemaid’s habit, sacrificing to Hymen.
If the Spaniards land in Ireland, shall you make the campaign? No. no, come back to England; you and I will not be patriots, till the Gauls are in the city, and we must take our great chairs and our fasces, and be knocked on the head with decorum in St. James’s market. Good night!
P. S. I am told that they bind in vellum better at Dublin than any where; pray bring me one book of their binding, as well as it can be done, and I will not mind the price. If Mr. Bourk’s history appear,-, before your return, let it be that.
(209) The Hon. James Pelham, of Crowhurst, Sussex. He had been principal secretary to Frederick Prince of Wales, and for nearly forty years secretary to the several lords-chamberlain.-E.
(210) She was daughter of the Earl of Albemarle, and married to the Marquis of Tavistock.
Letter 109 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Jan. 26, 1762. (page 167)
We have had as many mails due from Ireland as you had from us. I have at last received a line from you; it tells me you are well, which I am always glad to hear; I cannot say you tell me much more. My health is so little subject to alteration, and so preserved by temperance, that it is not worth repetition; thank God you may conclude it is good, if I do not say to the contrary.
Here is nothing new but preparations for conquest, and approaches to bankruptcy; and the worst is, the former will advance the latter at least as much as impede it. You say the Irish will live and die with your cousin: I am glad they are so well disposed. I have lived long enough to doubt whether all, who like to live with one, would be so ready to die with one. I know it is not pleasant to have the time arrived when one looks about to see whether they would or not; but you are in a country of more sanguine complexion, and where I believe the clergy do not deny the laity the cup.
The Queen’s brother arrived yesterday; your brother, Prince John, has been here about a week; I am to dine with him to-day at Lord Dacre’s with the Chute. Our burlettas are gone out of fashion; do the Atnicis come hither next year, or go to Guadaloupe, as is said? I have been told that a lady Kingsland(211) at Dublin has a picture of Madame Grammont by Petitot; I don’t know who Lady Kingsland is, whether rich or poor, but I know there is nothing I would not give for such a picture. I wish you would hunt it; and if the dame is above temptation, do try if you could obtain a copy in water colours, if there is any body in Dublin could execute it.
The Duchess of Portland has lately enriched me exceedingly; nine portraits of the court of Louis quatorze! Lord Portland brought them over; they hung in the nursery at Bulstrode, the children amused themselves with shooting at them. I have got them, but I will tell you no more, you don’t deserve it; you write to me as if I were your godfather: “Honoured Sir, I am brave and well, my cousin George is well, we drink your health every night, and beg your blessing.” This is the sum total of all your letters. I thought in a new country, and with your spirits and humour, you could have found something to tell me. I shall only ask you now when you return; but I declare I will not correspond with you: I don’t write letters to divert myself, but in expectation of returns; in short, you are extremely in disgrace with me; I have measured my letters for sometime, and for the future will answer you paragraph for paragraph. You yourself don’t seem to find letter-writing so amusing as to pay itself. Adieu!
(211) Nicholas Barnewall, third Viscount Kingsland, married Mary, daughter of Frances Jennings, sister to the celebrated Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, by George Count Hamilton: “by which marriage,” says Walpole, “the pictures I saw at Tarvey, Lord Kingsland’s house, came to him: I particularly recollect the portraits of Count Hamilton and his brother Anthony, and two of Madame Grammont; one taken in her youth, the other in advanced age.”-E.
Letter 110 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Feb. 2, 1762. (page 168)
I scolded YOU in my last, but I shall forgive you if you return soon to England, as you talk of doing; for though you are an abominable correspondent, and only write to beg letters, you are good company, and I have a notion I shall still be glad to see You.
Lady Mary Wortley is arrived;(212) I have seen her; I think her avarice, her dirt, and her vivacity, are all increased. Her dress, like her languages, is a gralimatias of several countries; the groundwork rags, and the embroidery nastiness. She needs no cap, no handkerchief, no gown, no petticoat, no shoes. An old black-laced hood represents the first; the fur of a horseman’s coat, which replaces the third, serves for the second; a dimity petticoat is deputy, and officiates for the fourth; and slippers act the part of the last. When I was at Florence, and she was expected there, we were drawing Sortes Virgili-anas for her; we literally drew
Insanam vatem aspicies.
It would have been a stronger prophecy now, even than it was then.
You told me not a word of Mr. Macnaughton,(213) and I have a great mind to be as coolly indolent about our famous ghost in Cock-lane. Why should one steal half an hour from one’s amusements to tell a story to a friend in another island? I could send you volumes on the ghost, and I believe if I were to stay a little, I might send its life, dedicated to my Lord Dartmouth, by the ordinary of Newgate, its two great patrons. A drunken parish clerk set it on foot out of revenge, the Methodists have adopted it, and the whole town of london think of nothing else. Elizabeth Canning and the Rabbit-woman were modest impostors in comparison of this, which goes on Without saving the least appearances. The Archbishop, who would not suffer the Minor to be acted in ridicule of the Methodists, permits this farce to be played every night, and I shall not be surprised if they perform in the great hall at Lambeth. I went to hear it, for it is not an apparition, but an audition. We set out from the Opera, changed our clothes at Northumberland-house, the Duke of York, Lady Northumberland, Lady Mary Coke, Lord Hertford, and I, all in one hackney coach, and drove to the spot: it rained torrents; yet the lane was full of mob, and the house so full we could not get in; at last they discovered it was the Duke of York, and the company squeezed themselves into one another’s pockets to make room for us. The house, which is borrowed, and to which the ghost has adjourned, is wretchedly small and miserable; when we opened the chamber, in which were fifty people, with no light but one tallow candle at the end, we tumbled over the bed of the child to whom the ghost comes, and whom they are murdering by inches in such insufferable heat and stench. At the top of the room are ropes to dry clothes. I asked, if we were to have rope-dancing between the acts? We had nothing; they told us, as they would at a puppet-show, that it would not come that night till seven in the morning, that is, when there are only ‘prentices and old women. We stayed however till half an hour after one. The Methodists have promised them contributions; provisions are sent in like forage, and all the taverns and alehouses in the neighbourhood make fortunes. The most diverting part is to hear people wondering when it will be found out–as if there was any thing to find out–as if the actors would make their noises when they can be discovered. However, as this pantomime cannot last much longer, I hope Lady Fanny Shirley will set up a ghost of her own at Twickenham, and then you shall hear one. The Methodists, as Lord Aylesford assured Mr. Chute two nights ago at Lord Dacre’s have attempted ghosts three times in Warwickshire. There, how good I am!
(212) Lady Mary Wortley Montagu remained at Venice till the death of Mr. Wortley in this year when she yielded to the solicitations of her daughter, the Countess of Bute, and, after an absence of two-and-twenty years, began her journey to England, where she arrived in October.-E.
(213) john Macnaughton, Esq. executed in December, 1761, for the murder of Miss Knox, daughter of Andrew Knox, Esq. of Prehen, member of parliament for Donegal. macnaughton, who had ruined himself by gambling, sought to replenish his fortune by marriage with this young lady, who had considerable expectations; but as her friends would not consent to their union, and he failed both in inveigling her into a secret marriage, and in compelling her by the suits which he commenced in the ecclesiastical courts to ratify an alleged promise of marriage, he revenged himself by shooting her while riding in a carriage with her father.-E.
Letter 111 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Feb. 6, 1762. (PAGE 169)
You must have thought me very negligent of your commissions; not only in buying your ruffles, but in never mentioning them; but my justification is most ample and verifiable. Your letters of Jan. 2d arrived but yesterday with the papers of Dec. 29. These are the mails that have so long been missing, and were shipwrecked or something on the Isle of Man. Now you see it was impossible for me to buy you a pair of ruffles for the 18th of January, when I did not receive the orders till the 5th of February.
You don’t tell me a word (but that is not new to you) of Mr. Hamilton’s wonderful eloquence, which converted a whole House of Commons on the five regiments. We have no such miracles here; five regiments might work such prodigies, but I never knew mere rhetoric gain above one or two proselytes at a time in all my practice.
We have a Prince Charles here, the Queen’s brother; he is like her, but more like the Hows; low, but well made, good eyes and teeth. Princess Emily is very ill, has been blistered, and been blooded four times.
My books appear on Monday se’nnight: if I can find any quick conveyance for them, you shall have them; if not, as you are returning soon, I may as well keep them for you. Adieu! I grudge every word I write to you.
Letter 112To The Rev. Mr. Cole.(214)
Tuesday, Feb. 7, 1762. (PAGE 170)
Dear Sir,
The little leisure I have to-day will, I trust, excuse my saying very few words in answer to your obliging letter, of which no part touches me more than what concerns your health, which, however, I rejoice to hear is reestablishing itself.
I am sorry I did not save you the trouble of cataloguing Ames’s beads, by telling you that another person has actually done it, and designs to publish a new edition ranged in a different method. I don’t know the gentleman’s name, but he is a friend of Sir William Musgrave, from whom I had this information some months ago.
You will oblige me much by the sight of the volume you mention. Don’t mind the epigrams you transcribe on my father. I have been inured to abuse on him from my birth. It is not a quarter of an hour ago since, cutting the leaves of a new dab called Anecdotes of Polite Literature, I found myself abused for having defended my father. I don’t know the author, and suppose I never shall, for I find Glover’s Leonidas is one of the things he admires–and so I leave them to be forgotten together, Fortunati Ambo!
I sent your letter to Ducarel, who has promised me those poems–I accepted the promise to get rid of him t’other day, when he would have talked me to death.
(214) A distinguished antiquary, better known by the assistance he gave to others than by publications of his own. He was vicar of Burnham, in the county of Bucks; and died December 16th, 1782, in his sixty-eighth year.-E.
Letter 113 To The Rev. Henry Zouch.
Arlington Street, Feb. 13, 1762. (PAGE 171)
Sir,
I should long ago have given myself the pleasure of writing to you, if I had not been constantly in hope of accompanying my letter with the Anecdotes of Painting, etc.; but the tediousness of engraving, and the roguery of a fourth printer, have delayed the publication week after week- for months: truly I do not believe that there is such a being as an honest printer in the world.
I Sent the books to Mr. Whiston, who, I think you told me, was employed by you: he answered, he knew nothing of the matter. Mr. Dodsley has undertaken now to convey them to you, and I beg your acceptance of them: it will be a very kind acceptance if you will tell me of any faults, blunders ,omissions, etc. as you observe them. In a first sketch of this nature, I cannot hope the work is any thing like complete. Excuse, Sir, the brevity Of this. I am much hurried at this instant of publication, and have barely time to assure you how truly I am your humble servant.
Letter 114To The Earl Of Bute.(215)
Strawberry Hill, Feb. 15, 1762. (PAGE 171)
My lord,
I am sensible how little time your lordship can have to throw away on reading idle letters of compliment; yet as it would be too great want of respect to your lordship, not to make some sort of reply to the note(216) you have done me the honour to send me, I thought I could couch what I have to say in fewer words by writing, than in troubling you with a visit, which might come unseasonably, and a letter you may read at any moment when you are most idle. I have already, my lord, detained you too long by sending you a book, which I could not flatter myself you would turn over in such a season of business: by the manner in ‘Which you have considered it, you have shown me that your very minutes of amusement you try to turn to the advantage of your country. It was this pleasing prospect of patronage to the arts that tempted me to offer you my pebble towards the new structure. I am flattered that you have taken notice’ of the only ambition I have: I should be more flattered if I could contribute to the smallest of your lordship’s designs for illustrating Britain. The hint your lordship is so good as to give me for a work like Montfaucon’s Monuments de la Monarchie Francaise, has long been a subject that I have wished to see executed, nor, in point of materials, do I think it would be a very difficult one. The chief impediment was the expense, too great for a private fortune. The extravagant prices extorted by English artists is a discouragement to all public undertakings. Drawings from paintings, tombs, etc. would be very dear. To have them engraved as they ought to be, would exceed the compass of a much ampler fortune than mine; which though equal to my largest wish, cannot measure itself with the rapacity of our performers.
But, my lord, if his Majesty was pleased to command such a work, on so laudable an idea as your lordship’s, nobody would be more ready than myself to give his assistance. I own I think I could be of use in it, in collecting or pointing out materials, and I would readily take any trouble in aiding, supervising, or directing such a plan. Pardon me, my lord, if I offer no more; I mean, that I do not undertake the part of composition. I have already trespassed too much upon the indulgence of the public; I wish not to disgust them with hearing of me, and reading me. It is time for me to have done; and when I shall have completed, as I almost have, the History of the Arts on which I am now engaged, I did not purpose to tempt again the patience of mankind. But the case is very different with regard to my trouble. My whole fortune is from the bounty of the crown, and from the public: it would ill become me to spare any pains for the King’s glory, or for the honour and satisfaction of my country; and give me leave to add, my lord, it would be an ungrateful return for the distinction with which your lordship has condescended to honour me if I withheld such trifling aid as mine, when it might in the least tend to adorn your lordship’s administration. From me, my lord, permit me to say, these are not words of course or of compliment, this is not the language of flattery; your lordship knows I have no Views, perhaps knows that, insignificant as it is, my praise is never detached from my esteem: and when you have raised, as I trust you will, real monuments of glory, the most contemptible characters in the inscription dedicated by your country, may not be the testimony of, my lord, etc.(217)
(215) Now first collected.
(216) This letter is in reply to the following note, which Walpole had, a few days before, received from the Earl of Bute:– “Lord Bute presents his compliments to Mr. Walpole, and returns him a thousand thanks for the very agreeable present he has made him. In looking over it, Lord Bute observes Mr. Walpole has mixed several curious remarks on the customs, etc. of the times he treats of; a thing much wanted, and that has never yet been executed, except in parts, by Peck, etc. Such a general work would be not only very agreeable, but instructive: the French have attempted it; the Russians are about it; and Lord Bute has been informed Mr. Walpole is well furnished with materials for such a noble work.”-E.
(217) The following passage, in a letter from Gray to Walpole, of the 28th of February, has reference to that work projected by Lord Bute:–“I rejoice in the good disposition of our court, and in the propriety of their application to you: the work is a thing so much to be wished; has so near a connexion with the turn of your studies and of your curiosity, and might find such ample materials among your hoards and in your head, that it will be a sin if you let it drop and come to nothing, or worse than nothing, for want of your assistance. The historical part should be in the manner of Herault, a mere abridgment; a series of facts selected with judgment, that may serve as a clue to lead the mind along in the midst of those ruins and scattered monuments of art that time has spared. This would be sufficient, and better than Montfaucon’s more diffuse narrative.” Works, vol. iii. p. 293. Before Walpole had received Gray’s letter, he had already adopted the proposed method; a large memorandum book of his being extant, with this title page, Collections for a History of the Manners, Customs, Habits, Fashions, Ceremonies, etc. of England; begun February 21, 1762, by Horace Walpole.” For a specimen of it, see his Works, vol. v. p. 400.-E.
Letter 115 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Feb. 22, 1762. (PAGE 173)
My scolding does you so much good. that I will for the future lecture you for the most trifling peccadillo. You have written me a very entertaining letter, and wiped out several debts; not that I will forget one of them if you relapse.
As we have never had a rainbow to assure us that the world shall not be snowed to death, I thought last night was the general connixation. We had a tempest of wind and snow for two hours beyond any thing I remember: chairs were blown to pieces, the streets covered with tassels and glasses and tiles, and coaches and chariots were filled like reservoirs. Lady Raymond’s house in Berkeley-square is totally unroofed; and Lord Robert Bertie, who is going to marry her, may descend into it like a Jupiter Pluvius. It is a week of wonders, and worthy the note of an almanack-maker. Miss Draycott, within two days of matrimony, has dismissed Mr. Beauclerc; but this is totally forgotten already in the amazement of a new elopement. In all your reading, true or false, have you ever heard of a young Earl, married to the most beautiful woman in the world, a lord of the bedchamber, a general officer, and with a great estate, quitting every thing, resigning wife and world, and embarking for life in a pacquetboat with a Miss? I fear your connexions will but too readily lead you to the name of the peer; it is Henry Earl of Pembroke,(218) the nymph Kitty Hunter. The town and Lady Pembroke were but too much witnesses to this intrigue, last Wednesday, at a great ball at Lord Middleton’s. On Thursday they decamped. However, that the writer of their romance, or I, as he is a noble author, might not want materials, the Earl has left a bushel of letters behind him; to his mother, to Lord Bute, to Lord Ligonier, (the two last to resign his employments,) and to Mr. Stopford, whom he acquits of all privity to his design. In none he justifies himself, unless this is a justification, that having long tried in vain to make his wife hate and dislike him, he had no way left but this, and it is to be hoped will succeed; and then it may not be the worst event that could have happened to her. You may easily conceive the hubbub such an exploit must occasion. With ghosts, elopements, abortive motions, etc., we can amuse ourselves tolerably well, till the season arrives for taking the field and conquering the Spanish West Indies.
I have sent YOU my books by a messenger; Lord Barrington was so good as to charge himself with them. They barely saved their distance; a week later, and no soul could have read a line in them, unless I had changed the title-page, and called them the loves of the Earl of Pembroke and Miss Hunter.
I am sorry Lady Kingsland is so rich. However, if the Papists should be likely to rise, pray disarm her of the enamel, and commit it to safe custody in the round tower at Strawberry. Good night! mine is a life of letter-writing; I pray for a peace that I may sheath my Pen.
(218) Henry Herbert, tenth Earl of Pembroke, married, 13th March 1756, Lady Elizabeth Spencer, second daughter of Charles, third Duke of Marlborough, by whom he had a son, George, eleventh Earl, born 19th September 1759: and some years afterwards, when he ran away with her, which he actually did, after they had lived for some time separated, a daughter, born in 1773, who died in 1784, unmarried.
Letter 116 To Dr. Ducarel.(219)
Feb. 24, 1762. (PAGE 174)
Sir, I am glad my books have at all amused you, and am much obliged to you for your notes and communications. Your thought of an English Montfaucon accords perfectly with a design I have long had of attempting something of that kind, in which too I have been lately encouraged; and therefore I will beg you at your leisure, as they shall occur, to make me little notes of customs, fashions, and portraits, relating to our history and manners. Your work on vicarages, I am persuaded, will be very useful, as every thing you undertake is, and curious.–After the medals I lent Mr. Perry, I have a little reason to take it ill, that he has entirely neglected me; he has published a number, and sent it to several persons,-and never to me.(220) I wanted to see him too, because I know of two very curious medals, which I could borrow for him. He does not deserve it at my hands, but I will not defraud the public of any thing valuable; and therefore, if he will call on me any morning, but a Sunday or Monday, between eleven and twelve, I will speak to him of them.–With regard to one or two of your remarks, I have not said that real lions were originally leopards. I have said that lions in arms, that is, painted lions, were leopards; and it is fact, and no inaccuracy. Paint a leopard yellow, and it becomes a lion.–YOU say, colours rightly prepared do not grow black. The art would be much obliged for such a preparation. I have not said that oil-colours would not endure with a glass; on the contrary, I believe they would last the longer.
I am much amazed at Vertue’s blunder about my marriage of Henry VII.; and afterwards, he said, “Sykes, knowing how to give names to pictures to make them sell,” called this the marriage of Henry VII.; and afterwards, he said, Sykes had the figures in an old picture of a church. He must have known little Indeed, Sir, if he had not known how to name a picture that he had painted on purpose that he might call it so! That Vertue, on the strictest examination, could not be convinced that the man was Henry VII., not being like any of his pictures. Unluckily, he is extremely like the shilling, which is much more authentic than any picture of Henry VII. But here Sykes seems to have been extremely deficient in his tricks. Did he order the figure to be painted like Henry VII., and yet could not get it painted like him, which was the easiest part of the task? Yet how came he to get the Queen painted like, whose representations are much scarcer than those of her husband? and how came Sykes to have pomegranates painted on her robe, only to puzzle the cause! It is not worth adding, that I should much sooner believe the church was painted to the figures, than the figures to the church. They are hard and antique: the church in a better style, and at least more fresh. If Vertue had made no better criticisms than these, I would never have taken so much trouble with his MS. Adieu!
(219) Librarian at Lambeth Palace, and a well-known antiquary. He died in 1785.
(220) A series of English Medals, by Francis Perry, 4to. with thirteen plates.
Letter 117 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Feb. 25, 1762. (PAGE 175)
I sent you my gazette but two days ago; I now write to answer a kind long letter I have received from you since.
I have heard of my brother’s play several years ago; but I never understood that it was completed, or more than a few detached scenes. What is become of Mr. Bentley’s play and Mr. Bentley’s epistle?
When I go to Strawberry, I will look for where Lord Cutts was buried; I think I can find it. I am disposed to prefer the younger picture of Madame Grammont by Lely; but I stumbled at the