Letters of Horace Walpole by Horace Walpole (page 3)

he is forced to bend, will the Parliament stop there?

[Footnote 1: “_A new one appointed._” This is a mistake of Walpole’s. A new Parliament was not, nor indeed could be, appointed; but Maupeou created six new Sovereign Courts at Arras, Blois, Chalons sur Marne, Clermont, Lyon, and Poitiers, at which “justice should be done at the sovereign’s expense” (Lacretelle, iv. 264).]

In the mean time our most serious war is between two Operas. Mr. Hobart, Lord Buckingham’s brother, is manager of the Haymarket. Last year he affronted Guadagni, by preferring the Zamperina, his own mistress, to the singing hero’s sister. The Duchess of Northumberland, Lady Harrington, and some other great ladies, espoused the brother, and without a license erected an Opera for him at Madame Cornelys’s. This is a singular dame, and you must be acquainted with her. She sung here formerly, by the name of the Pompeiati. Of late years she has been the Heidegger of the age, and presided over our diversions. Her taste and invention in pleasures and decorations are singular. She took Carlisle House in Soho Square, enlarged it, and established assemblies and balls by subscription. At first they scandalised, but soon drew in both righteous and ungodly. She went on building, and made her house a fairy palace for balls, concerts, and masquerades. Her Opera, which she called _Harmonic Meetings_, was splendid and charming. Mr. Hobart began to starve, and the managers of the theatres were alarmed. To avoid the act, she pretended to take no money, and had the assurance to advertise that the subscription was to provide coals for the poor, for she has vehemently courted the mob, and succeeded in gaining their princely favour. She then declared her Masquerades were for the benefit of commerce. I concluded she would open another sort of house next for the interests of the Foundling Hospital, and I was not quite mistaken, for they say one of her maids, gained by Mr. Hobart, affirms that she could not undergo the fatigue of managing such a house. At last Mr. Hobart informed against her, and the Bench of Justices, less soothable by music than Orpheus’s beasts, have pronounced against her. Her Opera is quashed, and Guadagni, who governed so haughtily at Vienna, that, to pique some man of quality there, he named a minister to Venice, is not only fined, but was threatened to be sent to Bridewell, which chilled the blood of all the Caesars and Alexanders he had ever represented; nor could any promises of his lady-patronesses rehabilitate his courage–so for once an Act of Parliament goes for something.

You have got three new companions;[1] General Montagu, a West Indian Mr. Paine, and Mr. Lynch, your brother at Turin.

[Footnote 1: As Knights of the Bath.–WALPOLE.]

There is the devil to pay in Denmark. The Queen[1] has got the ascendant, has turned out favourites and Ministers, and literally wears the breeches, actual buckskin. There is a physician, who is said to rule both their Majesties, and I suppose is sold to France, for that is the predominant interest now at Copenhagen. The Czarina has whispered her disapprobation, and if she has a talon left, when she has done with the Ottomans, may chance to scratch the little King.

[Footnote 1: The Queen was Caroline Matilda, a sister of George III., and was accused of a criminal intimacy with Count Struenzee, the Prime Minister. Struenzee, “after a trial with only a slight semblance of the forms of justice” (to quote the words of Lord Stanhope), was convicted and executed; and the Queen was at first imprisoned in the Castle of Cronenburg, but after a time was released, and allowed to retire to Zell, Hanover, where she died in 1774.]

For eight months to come I should think we shall have little to talk of, you and I, but distant wars and distant majesties. For my part, I reckon the volume quite shut in which I took any interest. The succeeding world is young, new, and half unknown to me. Tranquillity comprehends every wish I have left, and I think I should not even ask what news there is, but for fear of seeming wedded to old stories–the rock of old men; and yet I should prefer that failing to the solicitude about a world one belongs to no more! Adieu!

_QUARREL OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS WITH THE CITY–DISSENSIONS IN THE FRENCH COURT AND ROYAL FAMILY–EXTRAVAGANCE IN ENGLAND._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _April_ 26, 1771.

You may wonder that I have been so silent, when I had announced a war between the House of Commons and the City–nay, when hostilities were actually commenced; but many a campaign languishes that has set out very flippantly. My letters depend on events, and I am like the man in the weather-house who only comes forth on a storm. The wards in the City have complimented the prisoners,[1] and some towns; but the train has not spread much. Wilkes is your only gun-powder that makes an explosion. He and his associates are more incensed at each other than against the Ministry, and have saved the latter much trouble. The Select Committees have been silent and were forgotten, but there is a talk now of their making some report before the session closes.

[Footnote 1: The prisoners were Crosby, the Lord Mayor, and Oliver, one of the aldermen, both members of Parliament. The selection of the Tower for their imprisonment was greatly remarked upon, because hitherto that had never been so used except for persons accused of high treason; while their offence was but a denial of the right of the House of Commons to arrest a liveryman within the City, and the entertaining a charge of assault against the messenger who had endeavoured to arrest him. These riots, which for the moment appeared likely to become formidable, arose out of the practice of reporting the parliamentary debates, a practice contrary to the Standing Orders of Parliament, passed as far back as the reign of Elizabeth, but the violation of which had lately begun to be attempted.]

The serious war is at last absolutely blown over. Spain has sent us word she is disarming. So are we. Who would have expected that a courtesan at Paris would have prevented a general conflagration? Madame du Barri has compensated for Madame Helen, and is _optima pacis causa_. I will not swear that the torch she snatched from the hands of Spain may not light up a civil war in France. The Princes of the Blood[1] are forbidden the Court, twelve dukes and peers, of the most complaisant, are banished, or going to be banished; and even the captains of the guard. In short, the King, his mistress, and the Chancellor, have almost left themselves alone at Versailles. But as the most serious events in France have always a ray of ridicule mixed with them, some are to be exiled _to_ Paris, and some to St. Germain. How we should laugh at anybody being banished to Soho Square and Hammersmith? The Chancellor desired to see the Prince of Conti; the latter replied, “Qu’il lui donnoit rendezvous a la Greve.”[2]

[Footnote 1: The “Princes of the Blood” in France were those who, though of Royal descent, were not children of a king–such, for instance, as the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon; and they were reckoned of a rank so inferior to the princes of the Royal Family, that, as Marie Antoinette on one occasion told the Duke of Orleans, in a well-deserved reproof for his factious insolence, Princes of the Blood had never pretended to the honour of supping with the King and herself. (See the Editor’s “Life of Marie Antoinette,” c. 10). Their offence, in this instance, was having protested against the holding and the proceedings of a _Lit de Justice_, which had been held on April 15th, about three months after the banishment of all the members of Parliament (Lacretelle, c. 13).]

[Footnote 2: La Greve was the place of execution in Paris.

Who has e’er been at Paris must needs know the Greve, The fatal retreat of th’ unfortunate brave; Where honour and justice most oddly contribute To ease hero’s pains by a halter and gibbet (PRIOR).]

If we laugh at the French, they stare at us. Our enormous luxury and expense astonishes them. I carried their Ambassador, and a Comte de Levi, the other morning to see the new winter Ranelagh [The Pantheon] in Oxford Road, which is almost finished. It amazed me myself. Imagine Balbec in all its glory! The pillars are of artificial _giallo antico_. The ceilings, even of the passages, are of the most beautiful stuccos in the best taste of grotesque. The ceilings of the ball-rooms and the panels painted like Raphael’s _loggias_ in the Vatican. A dome like the pantheon, glazed. It is to cost fifty thousand pounds. Monsieur de Guisnes said to me, “Ce n’est qu’a Londres qu’on peut faire tout cela.” It is not quite a proof of the same taste, that two views of Verona, by Canaletti, have been sold by auction for five hundred and fifty guineas; and, what is worse, it is come out that they are copies by Marlow, a disciple of Scott. Both master and scholar are indeed better painters than the Venetian; but the purchasers did not mean to be so well cheated.

The papers will have told you that the wheel of fortune has again brought up Lord Holdernesse, who is made governor to the Prince of Wales. The Duchess of Queensberry, a much older veteran, is still figuring in the world, not only by giving frequent balls, but really by her beauty. Reflect, that she was a goddess in Prior’s days![1] I could not help adding these lines on her–you know his end:

Kitty, at Heart’s desire,
Obtained the chariot for a day,
And set the world on fire.

This was some fifty-six years ago, or more. I gave her this stanza:

To many a Kitty, Love his car
Will for a day engage,
But Prior’s Kitty, ever fair,
Obtained it for an age!

And she is old enough to be pleased with the compliment.

[Footnote 1: Prior died in 1721.]

My brother [Sir Edward Walpole] has lost his son; and it is no misfortune, though he was but three-and-thirty, and had very good parts; for he was sunk into such a habit of drinking and gaming, that the first ruined his constitution, and the latter would have ruined his father.

Shall I send away this short scroll, or reserve it to the end of the session? No, it is already somewhat obsolete: it shall go, and another short letter shall be the other half of it–so, good night!

_GREAT DISTRESS AT THE FRENCH COURT._

TO THE HON. H.S. CONWAY.

PARIS, _July_ 30, 1771.

I do not know where you are, nor where this will find you, nor when it will set out to seek you, as I am not certain by whom I shall send it. It is of little consequence, as I have nothing material to tell you, but what you probably may have heard.

The distress here is incredible, especially at Court. The King’s tradesmen are ruined, his servants starving, and even angels and archangels cannot get their pensions and salaries, but sing “Woe! woe! woe!” instead of Hosannahs. Compiegne is abandoned; Villars Coterets[1] and Chantilly crowded, and Chanteloup still more in fashion, whither everybody goes that pleases; though, when they ask leave, the answer is, “Je ne le defends ni le permets.” This is the first time that ever the will of a King of France was interpreted against his inclination. Yet, after annihilating his Parliament, and ruining public credit, he tamely submits to be affronted by his own servants. Madame de Beauveau, and two or three high-spirited dames, defy this Czar of Gaul. Yet they and their cabal are as inconsistent on the other hand. They make epigrams, sing vaudevilles,[2] against the mistress, hand about libels against the Chancellor [Maupeou], and have no more effect than a sky-rocket; but in three months will die to go to Court, and to be invited to sup with Madame du Barri. The only real struggle is between the Chancellor [Maupeou] and the Duc d’Aiguillon. The first is false, bold, determined, and not subject to little qualms. The other is less known, communicates himself to nobody, is suspected of deep policy and deep designs, but seems to intend to set out under a mask of very smooth varnish; for he has just obtained the payment of all his bitter enemy La Chalotais’ pensions and arrears. He has the advantage, too, of being but moderately detested in comparison of his rival, and, what he values more, the interest of the mistress. The Comptroller-General[3] serves both, by acting mischief more sensibly felt; for he ruins everybody but those who purchase a respite from his mistress. He dispenses bankruptcy by retail, and will fall, because he cannot even by these means be useful enough. They are striking off nine millions from _la caisse militaire_, five from the marine, and one from the _affaires etrangeres_: yet all this will not extricate them. You never saw a great nation in so disgraceful a position. Their next prospect is not better: it rests on an _imbecille_ [Louis XVI.], both in mind and body.

[Footnote 1: Villars Coterets was the country residence of the Duc d’Orleans; Chantilly that of the Prince de Conde; and Chanteloup that of the Duc de Choiseul: and the mere fact of their being in disgrace at Court was sufficient to make them popular with the people.]

[Footnote 2: The following specimen of these vaudevilles was given by Madame du Deffand to Walpole:–

“L’avez-vous vue, ma Du Barry,
Elle a ravi mon ame;
Pour elle j’ai perdu l’esprit,
Des Francais j’ai le blame:
Charmants enfans de la Gourdon,
Est-elle chez vous maintenant?
Rendez-la-moi,
Je suis le Roi,
Soulagez mon martyre;
Rendez-la-moi,
Elle est a moi,
Je suis son pauvre Sire.
L’avez-vous vue,” &c.

“Je sais qu’autrefois les laquais
On fete ses jeunes attraits;
Que les cochers,
Les perruquiers,
L’aimaient, l’aimaient d’amour extreme, Mais pas autant que je l’aime.
L’avez-vous vue,” &c.]

[Footnote 3: The Comptroller-General was the Abbe Terrai, notoriously as corrupt as he was incompetent. One of his measures, reducing the interest on the Debt by one-half, was tantamount to an act of bankruptcy; but the national levity comforted itself by jests, and one evening, when the pit at the theatre was crowded to suffocation, one of the sufferers carried the company with him by shouting out a suggestion to send for the Abbe Terrai to reduce them all to one-half their size.]

_ENGLISH GARDENING IN FRANCE–ANGLOMANIE–HE IS WEARY OF PARIS–DEATH OF GRAY._

TO JOHN CHUTE, ESQ.

Paris, _August_ 5, 1771.

It is a great satisfaction to me to find by your letter of the 30th, that you have had no return of your gout. I have been assured here, that the best remedy is to cut one’s nails in hot water. It is, I fear, as certain as any other remedy! It would at least be so here, if their bodies were of a piece with their understandings; or if both were as curable as they are the contrary. Your prophecy, I doubt, is not better founded than the prescription. I may be lame; but I shall never be a duck, nor deal in the garbage of the Alley.

I envy your _Strawberry tide_, and need not say how much I wish I was there to receive you. Methinks, I should be as glad of a little grass, as a seaman after a long voyage. Yet English gardening gains ground here prodigiously–not much at a time, indeed–I have literally seen one, that is exactly like a tailor’s paper of patterns. There is a Monsieur Boutin, who has tacked a piece of what he calls an English garden to a set of stone terraces, with steps of turf. There are three or four very high hills, almost as high as, and exactly in the shape of, a tansy pudding. You squeeze between these and a river, that is conducted at obtuse angles in a stone channel, and supplied by a pump; and when walnuts come in I suppose it will be navigable. In a corner enclosed by a chalk wall are the samples I mentioned; there is a strip of grass, another of corn, and a third _en friche_, exactly in the order of beds in a nursery. They have translated Mr. Whately’s book,[1] and the Lord knows what barbarism is going to be laid at our door. This new _Anglomanie_ will literally be _mad English_.

[Footnote 1: Mr. Whately, the Secretary to the Treasury, had published an essay on Gardening.]

New _arrets_, new retrenchments, new misery, stalk forth every day. The Parliament of Besancon is dissolved; so are the _grenadiers de France_. The King’s tradesmen are all bankrupt; no pensions are paid, and everybody is reforming their suppers and equipages. Despotism makes converts faster than ever Christianity did. Louis _Quinze_ is the true _rex Christianissimus_, and has ten times more success than his dragooning great-grandfather. Adieu, my dear Sir! Yours most faithfully.

_Friday 9th._

… It is very singular that I have not half the satisfaction in going into churches and convents that I used to have. The consciousness that the vision is dispelled, the want of fervour so obvious in the religious, the solitude that one knows proceeds from contempt, not from contemplation, make those places appear like abandoned theatres destined to destruction. The monks trot about as if they had not long to stay there; and what used to be holy gloom is now but dirt and darkness. There is no more deception than in a tragedy acted by candle-snuffers. One is sorry to think that an empire of common sense would not be very picturesque; for, as there is nothing but taste that can compensate for the imagination of madness, I doubt there will never be twenty men of taste for twenty thousand madmen. The world will no more see Athens, Rome, and the Medici again, than a succession of five good emperors, like Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, and the two Antonines.

_August_ 13.

Mr. Edmonson has called on me; and, as he sets out to-morrow, I can safely trust my letter to him. I have, I own, been much shocked at reading Gray’s[1] death in the papers. ‘Tis an hour that makes one forget any subject of complaint, especially towards one with whom I lived in friendship from thirteen years old. As self lies so rooted in self, no doubt the nearness of our ages made the stroke recoil to my own breast; and having so little expected his death, it is plain how little I expect my own. Yet to you, who of all men living are the most forgiving, I need not excuse the concern I feel. I fear most men ought to apologise for their want of feeling, instead of palliating that sensation when they have it. I thought that what I had seen of the world had hardened my heart; but I find that it had formed my language, not extinguished my tenderness. In short, I am really shocked–nay, I am hurt at my own weakness, as I perceive that when I love anybody, it is for my life; and I have had too much reason not to wish that such a disposition may very seldom be put to the trial. You, at least, are the only person to whom I would venture to make such a confession.

[Footnote 1: Gray died of gout in the stomach on July 30th. He was only fifty-five.]

Adieu! my dear Sir! Let me know when I arrive, which will be about the last day of the month, when I am likely to see you. I have much to say to you. Of being here I am most heartily tired, and nothing but this dear old woman should keep me here an hour–I am weary of them to death–but that is not new! Yours ever.

_SCANTINESS OF THE RELICS OF GRAY–GARRICK’S PROLOGUES, ETC.–WILKES’S SQUINT._

TO THE REV. WILLIAM COLE

ARLINGTON STREET, _Jan._ 28, 1772.

It is long indeed, dear Sir, since we corresponded. I should not have been silent if I had anything worth telling you in your way; but I grow such an antiquity myself, that I think I am less fond of what remains of our predecessors.

I thank you for Bannerman’s proposal; I mean, for taking the trouble to send it, for I am not at all disposed to subscribe. I thank you more for the note on King Edward; I mean, too, for your friendship in thinking of me. Of Dean Milles I cannot trouble myself to think any more. His piece is at Strawberry: perhaps I may look at it for the sake of your note. The bad weather keeps me in town, and a good deal at home; which I find very comfortable, literally practising what so many persons pretend they intend, being quiet and enjoying my fire-side in my elderly days.

Mr. Mason has shown me the relics of poor Mr. Gray. I am sadly disappointed at finding them so very inconsiderable. He always persisted, when I inquired about his writings, that he had nothing by him. I own I doubted. I am grieved he was so very near exact–I speak of my own satisfaction; as to his genius, what he published during his life will establish his fame as long as our language lasts, and there is a man of genius left. There is a silly fellow, I don’t know who, that has published a volume of Letters on the English Nation, with characters of our modern authors. He has talked such nonsense on Mr. Gray, that I have no patience with the compliments he has paid me. He must have an excellent taste! and gives me a woful opinion of my own trifles, when he likes them, and cannot see the beauties of a poet that ought to be ranked in the first line.

I am more humbled by any applause in the present age, than by hosts of such critics as Dean Milles. Is not Garrick reckoned a tolerable actor? His Cymon, his prologues and epilogues, and forty such pieces of trash, are below mediocrity, and yet delight the mob in the boxes as well as in the footman’s gallery. I do not mention the things written in his praise; because he writes most of them himself. But you know any one popular merit can confer all merit. Two women talking of Wilkes, one said he squinted–t’other replied, “Squints!–well, if he does, it is not more than a man should squint.” For my part, I can see how extremely well Garrick acts, without thinking him six feet high.[1]

[Footnote 1: He is quoting Churchill’s “Rosciad”–

When the pure genuine flame, by nature taught, Springs into sense, and every action’s thought; Before such merit all objections fly,
Pritchard’s genteel, and Garrick six feet high–

the great actor being a short man.]

It is said Shakespeare was a bad actor; why do not his divine plays make our wise judges conclude that he was a good one? They have not a proof of the contrary, as they have in Garrick’s works–but what is it to you or me what he is? We may see him act with pleasure, and nothing obliges us to read his writings.

_MARRIAGE OF THE PRETENDER–THE PRINCESS LOUISE, AND HER PROTECTION OF THE CLERGY–FOX’S ELOQUENCE._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _April_ 9, 1772.

It is uncommon for _me_ to send _you_ news of the Pretender. He has been married in Paris by proxy, to a Princess of Stolberg. All that I can learn of her is, that she is niece to a Princess of Salm, whom I knew there, without knowing any more of her. The new Pretendress is said to be but sixteen, and a Lutheran: I doubt the latter; if the former is true, I suppose they mean to carry on the breed in the way it began, by a spurious child. A Fitz-Pretender is an excellent continuation of the patriarchal line. Mr. Chute says, when the Royal Family are prevented from marrying,[1] it is a right time for the Stuarts to marry. This event seems to explain the Pretender’s disappearance last autumn; and though they sent him back from Paris, they may not dislike the propagation of thorns in our side.

[Footnote 1: In a previous letter Walpole mentions the enactment of the Royal Marriage Act by a very narrow majority, after more than one violent debate. It had been insisted on by the King, who was highly indignant at his brothers, the Dukes of Gloucester and Cumberland, having married two subjects. Singularly enough they were both widows, Lady Waldegrave and Mrs. Horton. And this Act made the consent of the sovereign indispensable to the marriage of any member of the Royal Family except the descendants of princesses married to foreign princes.]

I hear the credit of the French Chancellor declines. He had strongly taken up the clergy; and Soeur Louise,[1] the King’s Carmelite daughter, was the knot of the intrigue. The new Parliament has dared to remonstrate against a declaration obtained by the Chancellor for setting aside an _arret_ of 1762, occasioned by the excommunication of Parma. The Spanish and Neapolitan Ministers interposed, and pronounced the declaration an infringement of the family compact: the _arret_ of 1762 has been confirmed to satisfy them, and the Pope’s authority, and everything that comes from Rome, except what regards _the Penitential_, (I do not know what that means,) restrained. This is supported by d’Aiguillon and all the other Ministers, who are labouring the reconciliation of the Princes of the Blood, that the Chancellor may not have the honour of reconciling them. Perhaps the Princess of Stolberg sprung out of my Sister Louise’s cell. The King has demanded twelve millions of the clergy: they consent to give ten. We shall see whether Madame Louise, on her knees, or Madame du Barri will fight the better fight. I should think the King’s knees were more of an age for praying, than for fighting.

[Footnote 1: The Soeur Louise was the youngest daughter of Louis XV.; and, very different from her sisters, who were ill-tempered, political intriguers. She, on the contrary, was deeply religious, and had, some years before, taken the vows of the Carmelite order; and had fixed her residence at the Convent of St. Denis, where she was more than once visited by Marie Antoinette.]

The House of Commons is embarked on the ocean of Indian affairs, and will probably make a long session. I went thither the other day to hear Charles Fox, contrary to a resolution I had made of never setting my foot there again. It is strange how disuse makes one awkward: I felt a palpitation, as if I were going to speak there myself. The object answered: Fox’s abilities are amazing at so very early a period, especially under the circumstances of such a dissolute life. He was just arrived from Newmarket, had sat up drinking all night, and had not been in bed. How such talents make one laugh at Tully’s rules for an orator, and his indefatigable application. His laboured orations are puerile in comparison with this boy’s manly reason. We beat Rome in eloquence and extravagance; and Spain in avarice and cruelty; and, like both, we shall only serve to terrify schoolboys, and for lessons of morality! “Here stood St. Stephen’s Chapel; here young Catiline spoke; here was Lord Clive’s diamond-house; this is Leadenhall Street, and this broken column was part of the palace of a company of merchants[1] who were sovereigns of Bengal! They starved millions in India by monopolies and plunder, and almost raised a famine at home by the luxury occasioned by their opulence, and by that opulence raising the price of everything, till the poor could not purchase bread!” Conquest, usurpation, wealth, luxury, famine–one knows how little farther the genealogy has to go. If you like it better in Scripture phrase, here it is: Lord Chatham begot the East India Company; the East India Company begot Lord Clive; Lord Clive begot the Maccaronis, and they begot poverty; all the race are still living; just as Clodius was born before the death of Julius Caesar. There is nothing more like than two ages that are very like; which is all that Rousseau means by saying, “give him an account of any great metropolis, and he will foretell its fate.” Adieu!

[Footnote 1: “_A company of merchants._” “A mighty prince held domination over India; his name was Koompanee Jehan. Although this monarch had innumerable magnificent palaces at Delhi and Agra, at Benares, Boggleywallah, and Ahmednuggar, his common residence was in the beautiful island of Ingleez, in the midst of the capital of which, the famous city of Lundoon, Koompanee Jehan had a superb castle. It was called the Hall of Lead, and stood at the foot of the mountain of Corn, close by the verdure-covered banks of the silvery Tameez, where the cypresses wave, and zendewans, or nightingales, love to sing” (Thackeray, “Life of Sir C. Napier,” iv. p. 158).]

_AN ANSWER TO HIS “HISTORIC DOUBTS”–HIS EDITION OF GRAMMONT._

TO THE REV. WILLIAM COLE.

ARLINGTON STREET, _Jan._ 8, 1773.

In return to your very kind inquiries, dear Sir, I can let you know, that I am quite free from pain, and walk a little about my room, even without a stick: nay, have been four times to take the air in the Park. Indeed, after fourteen weeks this is not saying much; but it is a worse reflection, that when one is subject to the gout and far from young, one’s worst account will probably be better than that after the next fit. I neither flatter myself on one hand, nor am impatient on the other–for will either do one any good? one must bear one’s lot whatever it be.

I rejoice Mr. Gulston has justice,[1] though he had no bowels. How Gertrude More escaped him I do not guess. It will be wrong to rob you of her, after she has come to you through so many hazards–nor would I hear of it either, if you have a mind to keep her, or have not given up all thoughts of a collection since you have been visited by a Visigoth.

[Footnote 1: Mr. Gulston now fully remunerated Mr. Cole in a valuable present of books.–WALPOLE.]

I am much more impatient to see Mr. Gray’s print, than Mr. What-d’ye-call-him’s [Masters’s] answer to my “Historic Doubts.”[1] He may have made himself very angry; but I doubt whether he will make me at all so. I love antiquities; but I scarce ever knew an antiquary who knew how to write upon them. Their understandings seem as much in ruins as the things they describe. For the Antiquarian Society, I shall leave them in peace with Whittington and his Cat. As my contempt for them has not, however, made me disgusted with what they do not understand, antiquities, I have published two numbers of “Miscellanies,” and they are very welcome to mumble them with their toothless gums. I want to send you these–not their gums, but my pieces, and a “Grammont,”[2] of which I have printed only a hundred copies, and which will be extremely scarce, as twenty-five copies are gone to France. Tell me how I shall convey them safely.

[Footnote 1: Mr. Masters’s pamphlet, printed at the expense of the Antiquarian Society in the second volume of the “Archaeologia.”–WALPOLE.]

[Footnote 2: He had just published a small edition of Grammont’s Memoirs, “Augmentee de Notes et eclaircissemens necessaires, par M. Horace Walpole,” and had dedicated it to Mme. du Deffand.]

Another thing you must tell me, if you can, is, if you know anything ancient of the Freemasons. Governor Pownall,[1] a Whittingtonian, has a mind they should have been a corporation erected by the popes. As you see what a good creature I am, and return good for evil, I am engaged to pick up what I can for him, to support this system, in which I believe no more than in the pope: and the work is to appear in a volume of the Society’s pieces. I am very willing to oblige him, and turn my cheek, that they may smite that, also. Lord help them! I am sorry they are such numskulls, that they almost make me think myself something; but there are great authors enough to bring me to my senses again. Posterity, I fear, will class me with the writers of this age, or forget me with them, not rank me with any names that deserve remembrance. If I cannot survive the Milles’s, the What-d’ye-call-him’s [Masters’s], and the compilers of catalogues of Topography, it would comfort me very little to confute them. I should be as little proud of success as if I had carried a contest for churchwarden.

[Footnote 1: Thomas Pownall, Esq., the antiquary, and a constant contributor to the “Archaeologia.” Having been governor of South Carolina and other American colonies, he was always distinguished from his brother John, who was likewise an antiquary, by the title of Governor.]

Not being able to return to Strawberry Hill, where all my books and papers are, and my printer lying fallow, I want some short bills to print. Have you anything you wish printed? I can either print a few to amuse ourselves, or, if very curious, and not too dry, could make a third number of “Miscellaneous Antiquities.”

I am not in any eagerness to see Mr. What-d’ye-call-him’s pamphlet against me; therefore pray give yourself no trouble to get it for me. The specimens I have seen of his writing take off all edge from curiosity. A print of Mr. Gray will be a real present. Would it not be dreadful to be commended by an age that had not taste enough to admire his “Odes”? Is not it too great a compliment to me to be abused, too? I am ashamed. Indeed our antiquaries ought to like me. I am but too much on a par with them. Does not Mr. Henshaw come to London? Is he a professor, or only a lover of engraving? If the former, and he were to settle in town, I would willingly lend him heads to copy. Adieu!

_POPULARITY OF LOUIS XVI–DEATH OF LORD HOLLAND–BRUCE’S “TRAVELS.”_

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _July_ 10, 1774.

The month is come round, and I have, besides, a letter of yours to answer; and yet if I were not as regular as a husband or a merchant in paying my just dues, I think I should not perform the function, for I certainly have no natural call to it at present. Nothing in yours requires a response, and I have nothing new to tell you. Yet, if one once breaks in upon punctuality, adieu to it! I will not give out, after a perseverance of three-and-thirty years; and so far I will not resemble a husband.

The whole blood royal of France is recovered from the small-pox. Both Choiseul and Broglie are recalled, and I have some idea that even the old Parliament will be so. The King is adored, and a most beautiful compliment has been paid to him: somebody wrote under the statue of Henri Quatre, _Resurrexit_.[1]

[Footnote 1: “_Resurrexit._” A courtly picture-dealer, eager to make a market of the new sovereign’s popularity, devised even a neater compliment to him, issuing a picture of the three sovereigns–Louis XII., Henri IV., and the young king–with an explanation that 4 and 12 made 16.]

Lord Holland is at last dead, and Lady Holland is at the point of death. His sons would still be in good circumstances, if they were not _his_ sons; but he had so totally spoiled the two eldest, that they would think themselves bigots if they were to have common sense. The prevailing style is not to reform, though Lord Lyttelton [the bad Lord] pretends to have set the example. Gaming, for the last month, has exceeded its own outdoings, though the town is very empty. It will be quite so to-morrow, for Newmarket begins, or rather the youth adjourn thither. After that they will have two or three months of repose; but if they are not severely blooded and blistered, there will be no alteration. Their pleasures are no more entertaining to others, than delightful to themselves; one is tired of asking every day, who has won or lost? and even the portentous sums they lose, cease to make impression. One of them has committed a murder, and intends to repeat it. He betted L1,500 that a man could live twelve hours under water; hired a desperate fellow, sunk him in a ship, by way of experiment, and both ship and man have not appeared since. Another man and ship are to be tried for their lives, instead of Mr. Blake, the assassin.

Christina, Duchess of Kingston, is arrived, in a great fright, I believe, for the Duke’s nephews are going to prove her first marriage, and hope to set the Will aside. It is a pity her friendship with the Pope had not begun earlier; he might have given her a dispensation. If she loses her cause, the best thing he can do will be to give her the veil.

I am sorry all Europe will not furnish me with another paragraph. Africa is, indeed, coming into fashion. There is just returned a Mr. Bruce,[1] who has lived three years in the Court of Abyssinia, and breakfasted every morning with the Maids of Honour on live oxen. Otaheite and Mr. Banks are quite forgotten; but Mr. Blake, I suppose, will order a live sheep for supper at Almack’s, and ask whom he shall help to a piece of the shoulder. Oh, yes; we shall have negro butchers, and French cooks will be laid aside. My Lady Townshend [Harrison], after the Rebellion, said, everybody was so bloodthirsty, that she did not dare to dine abroad, for fear of meeting with a rebel-pie–now one shall be asked to come and eat a bit of raw mutton. In truth, I do think we are ripe for any extravagance. I am not wise enough to wish the world reasonable–I only desire to have follies that are amusing, and am sorry Cervantes laughed chivalry out of fashion. Adieu!

[Footnote 1: When Bruce’s “Travels” were first published, his account of the strange incidents which had occurred to him was very generally disbelieved and ridiculed; “Baron Munchausen” was even written in derision of them; but the discoveries of subsequent travellers have confirmed his narrative in almost every respect.]

_DISCONTENT IN AMERICA–MR. GRENVILLE’S ACT FOR THE TRIAL OF ELECTION PETITIONS–HIGHWAY ROBBERIES._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _Oct._ 6, 1774.

It would be unlike my attention and punctuality, to see so large an event as an irregular dissolution of Parliament, without taking any notice of it to you. It happened last Saturday, six months before its natural death, and without the design being known but the Tuesday before, and that by very few persons. The chief motive is supposed to be the ugly state of North America,[1] and the effects that a cross winter might have on the next elections. Whatever were the causes, the first consequences, as you may guess, were such a ferment in London as is seldom seen at this dead season of the year. Couriers, despatches, post-chaises, post-horses, hurrying every way! Sixty messengers passed through one single turnpike on Friday. The whole island is by this time in equal agitation; but less wine and money will be shed than have been at any such period for these fifty years.

[Footnote 1: “_America_”–the discontents in that country were caused by Mr. Charles Townshend’s policy, who, before his death, had revived Mr. Grenville’s plan of imposing taxes on the Colonies, and by the perseverance in that policy of Lord North, who succeeded him at the Exchequer, and who had also been First Lord of the Treasury since the resignation of the Duke of Grafton.]

We have a new famous Bill,[1] devised by the late Mr. Grenville, that has its first operation now; and what changes it may occasion, nobody can yet foresee. The first symptoms are not favourable to the Court; the great towns are casting off submission, and declaring for popular members. London, Westminster, Middlesex, seem to have no monarch but Wilkes, who is at the same time pushing for the Mayoralty of London, with hitherto a majority on the poll. It is strange how this man, like a phoenix, always revives from his embers! America, I doubt, is still more unpromising. There are whispers of their having assembled an armed force, and of earnest supplications arrived for succours of men and ships. A civil war is no trifle; and how we are to suppress or pursue in such a vast region, with a handful of men, I am not an Alexander to guess; and for the fleet, can we put it upon casters and wheel it from Hudson’s Bay to Florida? But I am an ignorant soul, and neither pretend to knowledge nor foreknowledge. All I perceive already is, that our Parliaments are subjected to America and India, and must be influenced by their politics; yet I do not believe our senators are more universal than formerly….

[Footnote 1: Mr. Grenville’s Act had been passed in 1770; but there had been no General Election since till this year. It altered the course of proceeding for the trial of election petitions, substituting for the whole House a Select Committee of fifteen members; but after a time it was found that it had not secured any greater purity of decision, but that the votes of the Committee were influenced by considerations of the interest of the dominant party as entirely as they had been in the days of Sir R. Walpole. And eventually, in the present reign, Mr. D’Israeli induced the House to surrender altogether its privilege of judging of elections, and to submit the investigation of election petitions to the only tribunal sufficiently above suspicion to command and retain the confidence of the nation, namely, the Judges of the High Court of Law. (See the Editor’s “Constitutional History of England, 1760-1860,” pp. 36-39.)]

In the midst of this combustion, we are in perils by land and water. It has rained for this month without intermission; there is sea between me and Richmond, and Sunday was se’nnight I was hurried down to Isleworth in the ferry-boat by the violence of the current, and had great difficulty to get to shore. Our roads are so infested by highwaymen, that it is dangerous stirring out almost by day. Lady Hertford was attacked on Hounslow Heath at three in the afternoon. Dr. Eliot was shot at three days ago, without having resisted; and the day before yesterday we were near losing our Prime Minster, Lord North; the robbers shot at the postillion, and wounded the latter. In short, all the freebooters, that are not in India, have taken to the highway. The Ladies of the Bedchamber dare not go the Queen at Kew in an evening. The lane between me and the Thames is the only safe road I know at present, for it is up to the middle of the horses in water. Next week I shall not venture to London even at noon, for the Middlesex election is to be at Brentford, where the two demagogues, Wilkes and Townshend, oppose each other; and at Richmond there is no crossing the river. How strange all this must appear to you Florentines; but you may turn to your Machiavelli and Guicciardini, and have some idea of it. I am the quietest man at present in the whole island; not but I might take some part, if I would. I was in my garden yesterday, seeing my servants lop some trees; my brewer walked in and pressed me to go to Guildhall for the nomination of members for the county. I replied, calmly, “Sir, when I would go no more to my own election, you may be very sure I will go to that of nobody else.” My old tune is,

Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis, &c.

Adieu!

P.S.–ARLINGTON STREET, _7th_.

I am just come to town, and find your letter, with the notification of Lord Cowper’s marriage; I recollect that I ought to be sorry for it, as you will probably lose an old friend. The approaching death of the Pope will be an event of no consequence. That old mummery is near its conclusion, at least as a political object. The history of the latter Popes will be no more read than that of the last Constantinopolitan Emperors. Wilkes is a more conspicuous personage in modern story than the Pontifex Maximus of Rome. The poll for Lord Mayor ended last night; he and his late Mayor had above 1,900 votes, and their antagonists not 1,500. It is strange that the more he is opposed, the more he succeeds!

I don’t know whether Sir W. Duncan’s marriage proved Platonic or not; but I cannot believe that a lady of great birth, and greater pride, quarrels with her family, to marry a Scotch physician for Platonic love, which she might enjoy without marriage. I remember an admirable _bon-mot_ of George Selwyn; who said, “How often Lady Mary will repeat, with Macbeth, ‘Wake, Duncan, with this knocking–would thou couldst!”

_THE POPE’S DEATH–WILKES IS RETURNED FOR MIDDLESEX–A QUAKER AT VERSAILLES._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _Oct._ 22, 1774.

Though I have been writing two letters, of four sides each, one of which I enclose, I must answer your two last, if my fingers will move; and talk to you on the contents of the enclosed.

If the Jesuits have precipitated the Pope’s death,[1] as seems more than probable, they have acted more by the spirit of their order, than by its good sense. Great crimes may raise a growing cause, but seldom retard the fall of a sinking one. This I take to be almost an infallible maxim. Great crimes, too, provoke more than they terrify; and there is no poisoning all that are provoked, and all that are terrified; who alternately provoke and terrify each other, till common danger produces common security. The Bourbon monarchs will be both angry and frightened, the Cardinals frightened. It will be the interest of both not to revive an order that bullies with arsenic in its sleeve. The poisoned host will destroy the Jesuits, as well as the Pope: and perhaps the Church of Rome will fall by a wafer, as it rose by it; for such an edifice will tumble when once the crack has begun.

[Footnote 1: Pope Benedict XIV. had died in September; but there was not any suspicion that his death had not been entirely natural.]

Our elections are almost over. Wilkes has taken possession of Middlesex without an enemy appearing against him; and, being as puissant a monarch as Henry the Eighth, and as little scrupulous, should, like him, date his acts _From our Palace of Bridewell, in the tenth year of our reign_. He has, however, met with a heroine to stem the tide of his conquests; who, though not of Arc, nor a _pucelle_, is a true _Joan_ in spirit, style, and manners. This is her Grace of Northumberland [Lady Elizabeth Seymour], who has carried the mob of Westminster from him; sitting daily in the midst of Covent Garden; and will elect her son [Earl Percy] and Lord Thomas Clinton,[1] against Wilkes’s two candidates, Lord Mahon[2] and Lord Mountmorris. She puts me in mind of what Charles the Second said of a foolish preacher, who was very popular in his parish: “I suppose his nonsense suits their nonsense.”

[Footnote 1: Second son of Henry, Duke of Newcastle.–WALPOLE.]

[Footnote 2: Only son of Earl Stanhope.–WALPOLE.]

Let me sweeten my letter by making you smile. A Quaker has been at Versailles; and wanted to see the Comtes de Provence and D’Artois dine in public, but would not submit to pull off his hat. The Princes were told of it; and not only admitted him with his beaver on, but made him sit down and dine with them. Was it not very sensible and good-humoured? You and I know one who would not have been so gracious: I do not mean my nephew Lord Cholmondeley.[1] Adieu! I am tired to death.

[Footnote 1: He means the Duke of Gloucester.–WALPOLE.]

P.S.–I have seen the Duchess of Beaufort; who sings your praises quite in a tune I like. Her manner is much unpinioned to what it was, though her person remains as stately as ever; and powder is vastly preferable to those brown hairs, of whose preservation she was so fond. I am not so struck with the beauty of Lady Mary[1] as I was three years ago. Your nephew, Sir Horace, I see, by the papers, is come into Parliament: I am glad of it. Is not he yet arrived at Florence?

[Footnote 1: Lady Mary Somerset, youngest daughter of Charles Noel, Duke of Beaufort. She was afterwards married to the Duke of Rutland.–WALPOLE.]

_BURKE’S ELECTION AT BRISTOL–RESEMBLANCE OF ONE HOUSE OF COMMONS TO ANOTHER–COMFORT OF OLD AGE._

TO THE COUNTESS OF AILESBURY.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _Nov._ 7, 1774.

I have written such tomes to Mr. Conway,[1] Madam, and so nothing new to write, that I might as well, methinks, begin and end like the lady to her husband; “Je vous ecris parceque je n’ai rien a faire: je finis parceque je n’ai rien a vous dire.” Yes, I have two complaints to make, one of your ladyship, the other of myself. You tell me nothing of Lady Harriet [Stanhope]: have you no tongue, or the French no eyes? or are her eyes employed in nothing but seeing? What a vulgar employment for a fine woman’s eyes after she is risen from her toilet? I declare I will ask no more questions–what is it to me, whether she is admired or not? I should know how charming she is, though all Europe were blind. I hope I am not to be told by any barbarous nation upon earth what beauty and grace are!

[Footnote 1: Mr. Conway and Lady Aylesbury were now at Paris together.–WALPOLE.]

For myself, I am guilty of the gout in my elbow; the left–witness my handwriting. Whether I caught cold by the deluge in the night, or whether the bootikins, like the water of Styx, can only preserve the parts they surround, I doubt they have saved me but three weeks, for so long my reckoning has been out. However, as I feel nothing in my feet, I flatter myself that this Pindaric transition will not be a regular ode, but a fragment, the more valuable for being imperfect.

Now for my Gazette.–Marriages–Nothing done. Intrigues–More in the political than civil way. Births–Under par since Lady Berkeley left off breeding. Gaming–Low water. Deaths–Lord Morton, Lord Wentworth, Duchess Douglas. Election stock–More buyers than sellers. Promotions–Mr. Wilkes as high as he can go.–_Apropos_, he was told the Lord Chancellor intended to signify to him, that the King did not approve the City’s choice: he replied, “Then I shall signify to his lordship, that I am at least as fit to be Lord Mayor as he is to be Lord Chancellor.” This being more Gospel than everything Mr. Wilkes says, the formal approbation was given.

Mr. Burke has succeeded in Bristol, and Sir James Peachey will miscarry in Sussex. But what care you, Madam, about our Parliament? You will see the _rentree_ of the old one, with songs and epigrams into the bargain. We do not shift our Parliaments with so much gaiety. Money in one hand, and abuse in t’other–those are all the arts we know. _Wit and a gamut_[1] I don’t believe ever signified a Parliament, whatever the glossaries may say; for they never produce pleasantry and harmony. Perhaps you may not taste this Saxon pun, but I know it will make the Antiquarian Society die with laughing.

[Footnote 1: Walpole is punning on the old Saxon name of the National Council, Witangemot.]

Expectation hangs on America. The result of the general assembly is expected in four or five days. If one may believe the papers, which one should not believe, the other side of the waterists are not _doux comme des moutons_, and yet we do intend to eat them. I was in town on Monday; the Duchess of Beaufort graced our loo, and made it as rantipole as a Quaker’s meeting. _Loois Quinze_,[1] I believe, is arrived by this time, but I fear without _quinze louis_.

[Footnote 1: This was a cant name given to a lady [Lady Powis], who was very fond of loo, and who had lost much money at that game.]

Your herb-snuff and the four glasses are lying in my warehouse, but I can hear of no ship going to Paris. You are now at Fontainbleau, but not thinking of Francis I., the Queen of Sweden, and Monaldelschi. It is terrible that one cannot go to Courts that are gone! You have supped with the Chevalier de Boufflers: did he act everything in the world and sing everything in the world? Has Madame de Cambis sung to you “_Sans depit, sans legerete_?”[1] Has Lord Cholmondeley delivered my pacquet? I hear I have hopes of Madame d’Olonne. Gout or no gout, I shall be little in town till after Christmas. My elbow makes me bless myself that I am not in Paris. Old age is no such uncomfortable thing, if one gives oneself up to it with a good grace, and don’t drag it about

To midnight dances and the public show.

[Footnote 1: The first words of a favourite French air.–WALPOLE.]

If one stays quietly in one’s own house in the country, and cares for nothing but oneself, scolds one’s servants, condemns everything that is new, and recollects how charming a thousand things were formerly that were very disagreeable, one gets over the winters very well, and the summers get over themselves.

_DEATH OF LORD CLIVE–RESTORATION OF THE FRENCH PARLIAMENT–PREDICTION OF GREAT MEN TO ARISE IN AMERICA–THE KING’S SPEECH._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _Nov._ 24, 1774.

… A great event happened two days ago–a political and moral event; the sudden death of that second Kouli Khan, Lord Clive.[1] There was certainly illness in the case; the world thinks more than illness. His constitution was exceedingly broken and disordered, and grown subject to violent pains and convulsions. He came unexpectedly to town last Monday, and they say, ill. On Tuesday his physician gave him a dose of laudanum, which had not the desired effect. On the rest, there are two stories; one, that the physician repeated the dose; the other, that he doubled it himself, contrary to advice. In short, he has terminated at fifty a life of so much glory, reproach, art, wealth, and ostentation! He had just named ten members for the new Parliament.

[Footnote 1: Lord Clive had committed suicide in his house in Berkeley Square. As he was passing through his library his niece, who was writing a letter, asked him to mend a pen for her. He did it, and, passing on into the next room, cut his throat with the same knife he had just used. It is remarkable that, when little more than a youth, he had once tried to destroy himself. In a fit, apparently of constitutional melancholy, he had put a pistol to his head, but it did not go off. He pulled the trigger more than once; always with the same result. Anxious to see whether there was any defect in the weapon or the loading, he aimed at the door of the room, and the pistol went off, the bullet going through the door; and from that day he conceived himself reserved by Providence for great things, though in his most sanguine confidence he could never have anticipated such glory as he was destined to win.]

Next Tuesday that Parliament is to meet–and a deep game it has to play! few Parliaments a greater. The world is in amaze here that no account is arrived from America of the result of their General Congress–if any is come it is very secret; and _that_ has no favourable aspect. The combination and spirit there seem to be universal, and is very alarming. I am the humble servant of events, and you know never meddle with prophecy. It would be difficult to descry good omens, be the issue what it will.

The old French Parliament is restored with great _eclat_.[1] Monsieur de Maurepas, author of the revolution, was received one night at the Opera with boundless shouts of applause. It is even said that the mob intended, when the King should go to hold the _lit de justice_,[2] to draw his coach. How singular it would be if Wilkes’s case should be copied for a King of France! Do you think Rousseau was in the right, when he said that he could tell what would be the manners of any capital city from certain given lights? I don’t know what he may do on Constantinople and Pekin–but Paris and London! I don’t believe Voltaire likes these changes. I have seen nothing of his writing for many months; not even on the poisoning Jesuits. For our part, I repeat it, we shall contribute nothing to the _Histoire des Moeurs_, not for want of materials, but for want of writers. We have comedies without novelty, gross satires without stings, metaphysical eloquence, and antiquarians that discover nothing.

Boeotum in crasso jurares aere natos!

[Footnote 1: In 1770 the Chancellor, Maupeou, had abolished the Parliament, as has been mentioned in a former note. Their conduct ever since the death of Richelieu had been factious and corrupt. But, though the Sovereign Courts, which Maupeou had established in their stead, had worked well, their extinction had been unpopular in Paris; and, on the accession of Louis XVI., the new Prime Minister, Maurepas, proposed their re-establishment, and the Queen, most unfortunately, was persuaded by the Duc de Choiseul to exert her influence in support of the measure. Turgot, the great Finance Minister–indeed, the greatest statesman that France ever produced–resisted it with powerful arguments, but Louis yielded to the influence of his consort. The Parliaments were re-established, and soon verified all the predictions of Turgot by conduct more factious and violent than ever. (See the Editor’s “France under the Bourbons,” iii. 413.)]

[Footnote 2: A _Lit de Justice_ was an extraordinary meeting of the Parliament, presided over by the sovereign in person, and one in which no opposition, or even discussion, was permitted; but any edict which had been issued was at once registered.]

Don’t tell me I am grown old and peevish and supercilious–name the geniuses of 1774, and I submit. The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra; but am I not prophesying, contrary to my consummate prudence, and casting horoscopes of empires like Rousseau? Yes; well, I will go and dream of my visions.

_29th._

… The Parliament opened just now–they say the speech talks of the _rebellion_ of the Province of Massachusetts; but if _they-say_ tells a lie, I wash my hands of it. As your gazetteer, I am obliged to send you all news, true or false. I have believed and unbelieved everything I have heard since I came to town. Lord Clive has died every death in the parish register; at present it is most fashionable to believe he cut his throat. That he is dead, is certain; so is Lord Holland–and so is not the Bishop of Worcester [Johnson]; however, to show you that I am at least as well informed as greater personages, the bishopric was on Saturday given to Lord North’s brother–so for once the Irishman was in the right, and a pigeon, at least a dove, can be in two places at once.

_RIOTS AT BOSTON–A LITERARY COTERIE AT BATH–EASTON._

TO THE HON. H.S. CONWAY AND LADY AYLESBURY.

ARLINGTON STREET, _Jan._ 15, 1775.

You have made me very happy by saying your journey to Naples is laid aside. Perhaps it made too great an impression on me; but you must reflect, that all my life I have satisfied myself with your being perfect, instead of trying to be so myself. I don’t ask you to return, though I wish it: in truth, there is nothing to invite you. I don’t want you to come and breathe fire and sword against the Bostonians,[1] like that second Duke of Alva,[2] the inflexible Lord George Germaine….

[Footnote 1: The open resistance to the new taxation of the American Colonies began at Boston, the capital of Massachusetts, where, on the arrival of the first tea-ship, a body of citizens, disguised as Red Indians, boarded the ship and threw the tea into the sea.]

[Footnote 2: The first Duke of Alva was the first Governor of the Netherlands appointed by Philip II.; and it was his bloodthirsty and intolerable cruelty that caused the revolt of the Netherlands, and cost Spain those rich provinces.]

An account is come of the Bostonians having voted an army of sixteen thousand men, who are to be called _minutemen_, as they are to be ready at a minute’s warning. Two directors or commissioners, I don’t know what they are called, are appointed. There has been too a kind of mutiny in the Fifth Regiment. A soldier was found drunk on his post. Gage, in his time of _danger_, thought rigour necessary, and sent the fellow to a court-martial. They ordered two hundred lashes. The General ordered them to improve their sentence. Next day it was published in the _Boston Gazette_. He called them before him, and required them on oath to abjure the communication: three officers refused. Poor Gage is to be scapegoat, not for this, but for what was a reason against employing him, incapacity. I wonder at the precedent! Howe is talked of for his successor.–Well, I have done with _you_!–Now I shall go gossip with Lady Aylesbury.

You must know, Madam, that near Bath is erected a new Parnassus, composed of three laurels, a myrtle-tree, a weeping-willow, and a view of the Avon, which has been new christened Helicon. Ten years ago there lived a Madam Riggs, an old rough humourist who passed for a wit; her daughter, who passed for nothing, married to a Captain Miller, full of good-natured officiousness. These good folks were friends of Miss Rich, who carried me to dine with them at Bath-Easton, now Pindus. They caught a little of what was then called taste, built and planted, and begot children, till the whole caravan were forced to go abroad to retrieve. Alas! Mrs. Miller is returned a beauty, a genius, a Sappho, a tenth Muse, as romantic as Mademoiselle Scuderi, and as sophisticated as Mrs. Vesey. The Captain’s fingers are loaded with cameos, his tongue runs over with _virtu_, and that both may contribute to the improvement of their own country, they have introduced _bouts-rimes_ as a new discovery. They hold a Parnassus fair every Thursday, give out rhymes and themes, and all the flux of quality at Bath contend for the prizes. A Roman vase dressed with pink ribbons and myrtles receives the poetry,[1] which is drawn out every festival; six judges of these Olympic games retire and select the brightest compositions, which the respective successful acknowledge, kneel to Mrs. Calliope Miller, kiss her fair hand, and are crowned by it with myrtle, with–I don’t know what. You may think this is fiction, or exaggeration. Be dumb, unbelievers! The collection is printed, published.–Yes, on my faith, there are _bouts-rimes_ on a buttered muffin, made by her Grace the Duchess of Northumberland; receipts to make them by Corydon the venerable, alias George Pitt; others very pretty, by Lord Palmerston; some by Lord Carlisle: many by Mrs. Miller herself, that have no fault but wanting metre; an Immorality promised to her without end or measure. In short, since folly, which never ripens to madness but in this hot climate, ran distracted, there never was anything so entertaining or so dull–for you cannot read so long as I have been telling.

[Footnote 1: Four volumes of this poetry were published under the title of “Poetical Amusements at a villa near Bath.” The following lines are a fair sample of the _bouts-rimes_.

The pen which I now take and brandish Has long lain useless in my standish. Know, every maid, from her own patten, To her who shines in glossy sattin,
That could they now prepare an oglio From best receipt of book in folio,
Ever so fine, for all their puffing, I should prefer a butter’d muffin;
A muffin Jove himself might feast on, If eat with Miller at Batheaston.

The following are the concluding lines of a poem on Beauty, by Lord Palmerston:–

In vain the stealing hand of Time
May pluck the blossoms of their prime; Envy may talk of bloom decay’d,
How lilies droop and roses fade;
But Constancy’s unalter’d truth,
Regardful of the vows of youth–
Affection that recalls the past,
And bids the pleasing influence last, Shall still preserve the lover’s flame In every scene of life the same;
And still with fond endearments blend The wife, the mistress, and the friend!

“Lady Miller’s collection of verses by fashionable people, which were put into her vase at Bath-Easton, in competition for honorary prizes, being mentioned, Dr. Johnson held them very cheap: ‘_Bouts-rimes_,’ said he, ‘is a mere conceit, and an old conceit; I wonder how people were persuaded to write in that manner for this lady.’ I named a gentleman of his acquaintance who wrote for the vase. JOHNSON–‘He was a blockhead for his pains!’ BOSWELL–‘The Duchess of Northumberland wrote.’–‘Sir, the Duchess of Northumberland may do what she pleases; nobody will say anything to a lady of her high rank: but I should be apt to throw … verses in his face.” (Boswell, vol. v. p. 227.)]

_OPPOSITION OF THE FRENCH PARLIAMENTS TO TURGOT’S MEASURES._

TO DR. GEM.[1]

[Footnote 1: Dr. Gem was an English physician who had been for some time settled in Paris. He was uncle to Canning’s friend and colleague, Mr. Huskisson.]

ARLINGTON STREET, _April_ 4, 1776.

It is but fair, when one quits one’s party, to give notice to those one abandons–at least, modern patriots, who often imbibe their principles of honour at Newmarket, use that civility. You and I, dear Sir, have often agreed in our political notions; and you, I fear, will die without changing your opinion. For my part, I must confess I am totally altered; and, instead of being a warm partisan of liberty, now admire nothing but despotism. You will naturally ask, what place I have gotten, or what bribe I have taken? Those are the criterions of political changes in England–but, as my conversion is of foreign extraction, I shall not be the richer for it. In one word, it is the _relation du lit de justice_ that has operated the miracle. When two ministers are found so humane, so virtuous, so excellent, as to study nothing but the welfare and deliverance of the people; when a king listens to such excellent men; and when a parliament, from the basest, most interested motives, interposes to intercept the blessing, must I not change my opinions, and admire arbitrary power? or can I retain my sentiments, without varying the object?

Yes, Sir, I am shocked at the conduct of the Parliament–one would think it was an English one! I am scandalised at the speeches of the _Avocat-general_,[1] who sets up the odious interests of the nobility and clergy against the cries and groans of the poor; and who employs his wicked eloquence to tempt the good young monarch, by personal views, to sacrifice the mass of his subjects to the privileges of the few–But why do I call it eloquence? The fumes of interest had so clouded his rhetoric, that he falls into a downright Iricism.–He tells the King, that the intended tax on the proprietors of land will affect the property not only of the rich, but of the poor. I should be glad to know what is the property of the poor? Have the poor landed estates? Are those who have landed estates the poor? Are the poor that will suffer by the tax, the wretched labourers who are dragged from their famishing families to work on the roads?–But _it is_ wicked eloquence when it finds a reason, or gives a reason for continuing the abuse. The Advocate tells the King, those abuses _presque consacres par l’anciennete_; indeed, he says all that can be said for nobility, it is _consacree par l’anciennete_; and thus the length of the pedigree of abuses renders them respectable!

[Footnote 1: The _Avocat-General_ was M. de Seguier; and, under his guidance, the Parliament had passed the monstrous resolution that “the _people_ in France was liable to the tax of _la taille_, and to _corvee_ at discretion” (_etait tailleable et corveable a volonte_), and that their “liability was an article of the Constitution which it was not in the power of even the King himself to change” (“France under the Bourbons,” iii. 422).]

His arguments are as contemptible when he tries to dazzle the King by the great names of Henri Quatre and Sully,[1] of Louis XIV. and Colbert, two couple whom nothing but a mercenary orator would have classed together. Nor, were all four equally venerable, would it prove anything. Even good kings and good ministers, if such have been, may have erred; nay, may have done the best they could. They would not have been good, if they wished their errors should be preserved, the longer they had lasted.

[Footnote 1: Sully and Colbert were the two great Finance Ministers of Henry IV. and Louis XIV.]

In short, Sir, I think this resistance of the Parliament to the adorable reformation planned by Messrs. de Turgot and Malesherbes[1] is more phlegmatically scandalous than the wildest tyranny of despotism. I forget what the nation was that refused liberty when it was offered. This opposition to so noble a work is worse. A whole people may refuse its own happiness; but these profligate magistrates resist happiness for others, for millions, for posterity!–Nay, do they not half vindicate Maupeou, who crushed them? And you, dear Sir, will you now chide my apostasy? Have I not cleared myself to your eyes? I do not see a shadow of sound logic in all Monsieur Seguier’s speeches, but in his proposing that the soldiers should work on the roads, and that passengers should contribute to their fabric; though, as France is not so luxuriously mad as England, I do not believe passengers could support the expense of their roads. That argument, therefore, is like another that the Avocat proposes to the King, and which, he modestly owns, he believes would be impracticable.

[Footnote 1: Malesherbes was the Chancellor, and in 1792 he was accepted by Louis XVI. as his counsel on his trial–a duty which he performed with an ability which drew on him the implacable resentment of Robespierre and the Jacobins, and which led to his execution in 1794.]

I beg your pardon, Sir, for giving you this long trouble; but I could not help venting myself, when shocked to find such renegade conduct in a Parliament that I was rejoiced had been restored. Poor human kind! is it always to breed serpents from its own bowels? In one country, it chooses its representatives, and they sell it and themselves; in others, it exalts despots; in another, it resists the despot when he consults the good of his people! Can we wonder mankind is wretched, when men are such beings? Parliaments run wild with loyalty, when America is to be enslaved or butchered. They rebel, when their country is to be set free! I am not surprised at the idea of the devil being always at our elbows. They who invented him, no doubt could not conceive how men could be so atrocious to one another, without the intervention of a fiend. Don’t you think, if he had never been heard of before, that he would have been invented on the late partition of Poland! Adieu, dear Sir. Yours most sincerely.

_HIS DECORATIONS AT “STRAWBERRY”–HIS ESTIMATE OF HIMSELF, AND HIS ADMIRATION OF CONWAY._

TO THE HON. H.S. CONWAY.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _June_ 20, 1776.

I was very glad to receive your letter, not only because always most glad to hear of you, but because I wished to write to you, and had absolutely nothing to say till I had something to answer. I have lain but two nights in town since I saw you; have been, else, constantly here, very much employed, though doing, hearing, knowing exactly nothing. I have had a Gothic architect [Mr. Essex] from Cambridge to design me a gallery, which will end in a mouse, that is, in an hexagon closet of seven feet diameter. I have been making a Beauty Room, which was effected by buying two dozen of small copies of Sir Peter Lely, and hanging them up; and I have been making hay, which is not made, because I put it off for three days, as I chose it should adorn the landscape when I was to have company; and so the rain is come, and has drowned it. However, as I can even turn calculator when it is to comfort me for not minding my interest, I have discovered that it is five to one better for me that my hay should be spoiled than not; for, as the cows will eat it if it is damaged, which horses will not, and as I have five cows and but one horse, is not it plain that the worse my hay is the better? Do not you with your refining head go, and, out of excessive friendship, find out something to destroy my system. I had rather be a philosopher than a rich man; and yet have so little philosophy, that I had much rather be content than be in the right.

Mr. Beauclerk and Lady Di have been here four or five days–so I had both content and exercise for my philosophy. I wish Lady Ailesbury was as fortunate! The Pembrokes, Churchills, Le Texier, as you will have heard, and the Garricks have been with us. Perhaps, if alone, I might have come to you; but you are all too healthy and harmonious. I can neither walk nor sing; nor, indeed, am fit for anything but to amuse myself in a sedentary trifling way. What I have most certainly not been doing, is writing anything: a truth I say to you, but do not desire you to repeat. I deign to satisfy scarce anybody else. Whoever reported that I was writing anything, must have been so totally unfounded, that they either blundered by guessing without reason, or knew they lied–and that could not be with any kind intention; though saying I am going to do what I am not going to do, is wretched enough. Whatever is said of me without truth, anybody is welcome to believe that pleases.

In fact, though I have scarce a settled purpose about anything, I think I shall never write any more. I have written a great deal too much, unless I had written better, and I know I should now only write still worse. One’s talent, whatever it is, does not improve at near sixty–yet, if I liked it, I dare to say a good reason would not stop my inclination;–but I am grown most indolent in that respect, and most absolutely indifferent to every purpose of vanity. Yet without vanity I am become still prouder and more contemptuous. I have a contempt for my countrymen that makes me despise their approbation. The applause of slaves and of the foolish mad is below ambition. Mine is the haughtiness of an ancient Briton, that cannot write what would please this age, and would not, if he could.

Whatever happens in America, this country is undone. I desire to be reckoned of the last age, and to be thought to have lived to be superannuated, preserving my senses only for myself and for the few I value. I cannot aspire to be traduced like Algernon Sydney, and content myself with sacrificing to him amongst my lares. Unalterable in my principles, careless about most things below essentials, indulging myself in trifles by system, annihilating myself by choice, but dreading folly at an unseemly age, I contrive to pass my time agreeably enough, yet see its termination approach without anxiety. This is a true picture of my mind; and it must be true, because drawn for you, whom I would not deceive, and could not, if I would. Your question on my being writing drew it forth, though with more seriousness than the report deserved–yet talking to one’s dearest friend is neither wrong nor out of season. Nay, you are my best apology. I have always contented myself with your being perfect, or, if your modesty demands a mitigated term, I will say, unexceptionable. It is comical, to be sure, to have always been more solicitous about the virtue of one’s friend than about one’s own; yet, I repeat it, you are my apology–though I never was so unreasonable as to make you answerable for my faults in return; I take them wholly to myself. But enough of this. When I know my own mind, for hitherto I have settled no plan for my summer, I will come to you. Adieu!

_ANGLOMANIE IN PARIS–HORSE-RACING._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _Dec._ 1, 1776.

I don’t know who the Englishwoman is of whom you give so ridiculous a description; but it will suit thousands. I distrust my age continually, and impute to it half the contempt I feel for my countrymen and women. If I think the other half well-founded, it is by considering what must be said hereafter of the present age. What is to impress a great idea of us on posterity? In truth, what do our contemporaries of all other countries think of us? They stare at and condemn our politics and follies; and if they retain any respect for us, I doubt it is for the sense we have had. I do know, indeed, one man who still worships us, but his adoration is testified so very absurdly, as not to do us much credit. It is a Monsieur de Marchais, first Valet-de-Chambre to the King of France. He has the _Anglomanie_ so strong, that he has not only read more English than French books, but if any valuable work appears in his own language, he waits to peruse it till it is translated into English; and to be sure our translations of French are admirable things!

To do the rest of the French justice, I mean such as like us, they adopt only our egregious follies, and in particular the flower of them, horse-racing![1] _Le Roi Pepin_, a racer, is the horse in fashion. I suppose the next shameful practice of ours they naturalize will be the personal scurrilities in the newspapers, especially on young and handsome women, in which we certainly are originals! Voltaire, who first brought us into fashion in France, is stark mad at his own success. Out of envy to writers of his own nation, he cried up Shakspeare; and now is distracted at the just encomiums bestowed on that first genius of the world in the new translation. He sent to the French Academy an invective that bears all the marks of passionate dotage. Mrs. Montagu happened to be present when it was read. Suard, one of their writers, said to her, “Je crois, Madame, que vous etes un peu fache de ce que vous venez d’entendre.” She replied, “Moi, Monsieur! point du tout! Je ne suis pas amie de Monsieur Voltaire.” I shall go to town the day after to-morrow, and will add a postscript, if I hear any news.

[Footnote 1: “A rage for adopting English fashions (Anglomanie, as it was called) began to prevail; and, among the different modes in which it was exhibited, it is especially noticed that tea was introduced, and began to share with coffee the privilege of affording sober refreshment to those who aspired in their different ways to give the tone to French society. A less innocent novelty was a passion for horse-racing, in which the Comte d’Artois and the Duc de Chartres set the example of indulging, establishing a racecourse in the Bois de Boulogne. The Count had but little difficulty in persuading the Queen to attend it, and she soon showed so decided a fancy for the sport, and became so regular a visitor of it, that a small stand was built for her, which in subsequent years provoked unfavourable comments, when the Prince obtained her leave to give luncheon to some of their racing friends, who were not in every instance of a character entitled to be brought into a royal presence” (the Editor’s “Life of Marie Antoinette,” c. II).]

_Dec. 3rd._

I am come late, have seen nobody, and must send away my letter.

_OSSIAN–CHATTERTON._

TO THE REV. WILLIAM COLE.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _June_ 19, 1777.

I thank you for your notices, dear Sir, and shall remember that on Prince William. I did see the _Monthly Review_, but hope one is not guilty of the death of every man who does not make one the dupe of a forgery. I believe M’Pherson’s success with “Ossian”[1] was more the ruin of Chatterton[2] than I. Two years passed between my doubting the authenticity of Rowley’s poems and his death. I never knew he had been in London till some time after he had undone and poisoned himself there. The poems he sent me were transcripts in his own hand, and even in that circumstance he told a lie: he said he had them from the very person at Bristol to whom he had given them. If any man was to tell you that monkish rhymes had been dug up at Herculaneum, which was destroyed several centuries before there was any such poetry, should you believe it? Just the reverse is the case of Rowley’s pretended poems. They have all the elegance of Waller and Prior, and more than Lord Surrey–but I have no objection to anybody believing what he pleases. I think poor Chatterton was an astonishing genius–but I cannot think that Rowley foresaw metres that were invented long after he was dead, or that our language was more refined at Bristol in the reign of Henry V. than it was at Court under Henry VIII. One of the chaplains of the Bishop of Exeter has found a line of Rowley in “Hudibras”–the monk might foresee that too! The prematurity of Chatterton’s genius is, however, full as wonderful, as that such a prodigy as Rowley should never have been heard of till the eighteenth century. The youth and industry of the former are miracles, too, yet still more credible. There is not a symptom in the poems, but the old words, that savours of Rowley’s age–change the old words for modern, and the whole construction is of yesterday.

[Footnote 1: Macpherson was a Scotch literary man, who in 1760 published “Fingal” in six books, which he declared he had translated from a poem by Ossian, son of Fingal, a Gaelic prince of the third century. For a moment the work was accepted as genuine in some quarters, especially by some of the Edinburgh divines. But Dr. Johnson denounced it as an imposture from the first. He pointed out that Macpherson had never produced the manuscripts from which he professed to have translated it when challenged to do so. He maintained also that the so-called poem had no merits; that “it was a mere unconnected rhapsody, a tiresome repetition of the same images;” and his opinion soon became so generally adopted, that Macpherson wrote him a furious letter of abuse, even threatening him with personal violence; to which Johnson replied “that he would not be deterred from exposing what he thought a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian”–a reply which seems to have silenced Mr. Macpherson (Boswell’s “Life of Johnson,” i. 375, ii. 310).]

[Footnote 2: Chatterton’s is a melancholy story. In 1768, when a boy of only sixteen, he published a volume of ballads which he described as the work of Rowley, a priest of Bristol in the fifteenth century, and which he affirmed he had found in an old chest in the crypt of the Church of St. Mary Redcliffe at Bristol, of which his father was sexton. They gave proofs of so rich and precocious a genius, that if he had published them as his own works, he would “have found himself famous” in a moment, as Byron did forty years afterwards. But people resented the attempt to impose on them, Walpole being among the first to point out the proofs of their modern composition; and consequently the admiration which his genius might have excited was turned into general condemnation of his imposture, and in despair he poisoned himself in 1770, when he was only eighteen years old.]

_AFFAIRS IN AMERICA–THE CZARINA AND THE EMPEROR OF CHINA._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _Oct._ 26, 1777.

It is past my usual period of writing to you; which would not have happened but from an uncommon, and indeed, considering the moment, an extraordinary dearth of matter. I could have done nothing but describe suspense, and every newspaper told you that. Still we know nothing certain of the state of affairs in America; the very existence where, of the Howes, is a mystery. The General is said to have beaten Washington, Clinton to have repulsed three attacks, and Burgoyne[1] to be beaten. The second alone is credited. Impatience is very high, and uneasiness increases with every day. There is no sanguine face anywhere, but many alarmed ones. The pains taken, by circulating false reports, to keep up some confidence, only increase the dissatisfaction by disappointing. Some advantage gained may put off clamour for some months: but I think, the longer it is suspended, the more terrible it will be; and how the war should end but in ruin, I am not wise enough to conjecture. France suspends the blow, to make it more inevitable. She has suffered us to undo ourselves: will she allow us time to recover? We have begged her indulgence in the first: will she grant the second prayer?…

[Footnote 1: In June and July General Burgoyne, a man of some literary as well as military celebrity, achieved some trifling successes over the colonial army, alternating, however, with some defeats. He took Ticonderoga, but one of his divisions was defeated with heavy loss at Bennington–a disaster which, Lord Stanhope says, exercised a fatal influence over the rest of the campaign; and finally, a week before this letter was written, he and all his army were so hemmed in at Saratoga, that they were compelled to lay down their arms–a disgrace which was the turning-point of the war, and which is compared by Lord Stanhope to the capitulation of his own ancestor at Brihuega in the war of the Spanish Succession. The surrender of Saratoga was the event which determined the French and Spaniards to recognise the independence of the colonies, and consequently to unite with them in the war against England.]

You have heard of the inundation at Petersburg. That ill wind produced luck to somebody. As the Empress had not distressed objects enough among her own people to gratify her humanity, she turned the torrent of her bounty towards that unhappy relict the Duchess of Kingston, and ordered her Admiralty to take particular care of the marvellous yacht that bore Messalina and her fortune. Pray mind that I bestow the latter Empress’s name on the Duchess, only because she married a second husband in the lifetime of the first. Amongst other benevolences, the Czarina lent her Grace a courier to despatch to England–I suppose to acquaint Lord Bristol that he is not a widower. That courier brought a letter from a friend to Dr. Hunter, with the following anecdote. Her Imperial Majesty proposed to her brother of China to lay waste a large district that separates their two empires, lest it should, as it has been on the point of doing, produce war between them; the two empires being at the two extremities of the world, not being distance enough to keep the peace. The ill-bred Tartar sent no answer to so humane a project. On the contrary, he dispersed a letter to the Russian people, in which he tells them that a woman–he might have said the Minerva of the French _literati_–had proposed to him to extirpate all the inhabitants of a certain region belonging to him, but that he knew better what to do with his own country: however, he could but wonder that the people of all the Russias should still submit to be governed by a creature that had assassinated her husband.–Oh! if she had pulled the Ottoman by the nose in the midst of Constantinople, as she intended to do, this savage would have been more civilised. I doubt the same rude monarch is still on the throne, who would not suffer Prince Czernichew to enter his territories, when sent to notify her Majesty’s _hereditary_ succession to her husband; but bade him be told, he would not receive an ambassador from a murderess. Is it not shocking that the law of nations, and the law of politeness, should not yet have abrogated the laws of justice and good-sense in a nation reckoned so civilised as the Chinese? What an age do we live in, if there is still a country where the Crown does not take away all defects! Good night!

_DEATH OF LORD CHATHAM–THURLOW BECOMES LORD CHANCELLOR._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _May_ 31, 1778.

I am forced to look at the dates I keep of my letters, to see what events I have or have not told you; for at this crisis something happens every day; though nothing very striking since the death of Lord Chatham, with which I closed my last. No?–yes, but there has. All England, which had abandoned him, found out, the moment his eyes were closed, that nothing but Lord Chatham could have preserved them. How lucky for him that the experiment cannot be made! Grief is fond, and grief is generous. The Parliament will bury him; the City begs the honour of being his grave; and the important question is not yet decided, whether he is to lie at Westminster or in St. Paul’s; on which it was well said, that it would be “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” An annuity of four thousand pounds is settled on the title of Chatham, and twenty thousand pounds allotted to pay his debts. The Opposition and the Administration disputed zeal; and neither care a straw about him. He is already as much forgotten as John of Gaunt.

General Burgoyne has succeeded and been the topic, and for two days engrossed the attention of the House of Commons; and probably will be heard of no more. He was even forgotten for three hours while he was on the tapis, by a violent quarrel between Temple Luttrell (a brother of the Duchess of Cumberland) and Lord George Germaine; but the public has taken affection for neither them nor the General: being much more disposed at present to hate than to love–except the dead. It will be well if the ill-humour, which increases, does not break out into overt acts.

I know not what to say of war. The Toulon squadron was certainly blown back. That of Brest is supposed to be destined to invade some part of this country or Ireland; or rather, it is probable, will attempt our fleet. In my own opinion, there is no great alacrity in France–I mean, in the Court of France–for war; and, as we have had time for great preparations, their eagerness will not increase. We shall suffer as much as they can desire by the loss of America, without their risk, and in a few years shall be able to give them no umbrage; especially as our frenzy is still so strong, that, if France left us at quiet, I am persuaded we should totally exhaust ourselves in pursuing the vision of reconquest. Spain continues to disclaim hostility as you told me. If the report is true of revolts in Mexico, they would be as good as a bond under his Catholic Majesty’s hand.

We shall at least not doze, as we are used to do, in summer. The Parliament is to have only short adjournments; and our senators, instead of retiring to horse-races (_their_ plough), are all turned soldiers, and disciplining militia. Camps everywhere, and the ladies in the uniform of their husbands! In short, if the dose is not too strong, a little adversity would not be quite unseasonable.–A little! you will cry; why what do you call the loss of America? Oh! my dear sir, do you think a capital as enormous as London has its nerves affected by what happens beyond the Atlantic? What has become of all your reading? There is nothing so unnatural as the feelings of a million of persons who live together in one city. They have not one conception like those in villages and in the country. They presume or despond from quite different motives. They have both more sense and less, than those who are not in contact with a multitude. Wisdom forms empires, but folly dissolves them; and a great capital, which dictates to the rest of the community, is always the last to perceive the decays of the whole, because it takes its own greatness for health.

Lord Holdernesse is dead; not quite so considerable a personage as he once expected to be, though Nature never intended him for anything that he was. The Chancellor, another child of Fortune, quits the Seals; and they are, or are to be, given to the Attorney-General, Thurlow, whom nobody will reproach with want of abilities.

As the Parliament will rise on Tuesday, you will not expect my letters so frequently as of late, especially if hostilities do not commence. In fact, our newspapers tell you everything faster than I can: still I write, because you have more faith in my intelligence; yet all its merit consists in my not telling you fables. I hear no more than everybody does, but I send you only what is sterling; or, at least, give you reports for no more than they are worth. I believe Sir John Dick is much more punctual, and hears more; but, till you displace me, I shall execute my office of being your gazetteer.

_EXULTATION OF FRANCE AT OUR DISASTERS IN AMERICA–FRANKLIN–NECKER–CHATTERTON._

TO THE REV. WILLIAM COLE.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _June_ 3, 1778.

I will not dispute with you, dear Sir, on patriots and politics. One point is past controversy, that the Ministers have ruined this country; and if the Church of England is satisfied with being reconciled to the Church of Rome, and thinks it a compensation for the loss of America and all credit in Europe, she is as silly an old woman as any granny in an almshouse. France is very glad we have grown such fools, and soon saw that the Presbyterian Dr. Franklin[1] had more sense than our Ministers together. She has got over all her prejudices, has expelled the Jesuits, and made the Protestant Swiss, Necker,[2] her Comptroller-general. It is a little woful, that we are relapsing into the nonsense the rest of Europe is shaking off! and it is more deplorable, as we know by repeated experience, that this country has always been disgraced by Tory administrations. The rubric is the only gainer by them in a few martyrs.

[Footnote 1: Dr. Franklin, as a man of science, may almost be called the father of electrical science. He was the discoverer of the electrical character of lightning, a discovery which he followed up by the invention of iron conductors for the protection of buildings, &c., from lightning. He was also a very zealous politician, and one of the leaders of the American colonists in their resistance to the taxation imposed first by Mr. Grenville and afterwards by Mr. C. Townshend. He resided for several years in England as agent for the State of Pennsylvania, and in that character, in the year 1765, was examined before the Committee of the House of Commons on the Stamp Act of Mr. Grenville. After the civil war broke out he was elected a member of the American Congress, and was sent as an envoy to France to negotiate a treaty with that country. As early as 1758 he was elected a member of the Royal Society in England, and received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from the University of Oxford.]

[Footnote 2: Necker was originally a banker, in which business he made a large fortune; but after a time he turned his attention to politics. He began by opposing the financial and constitutional schemes of the great Turgot, and shortly after the dismissal of that Minister he himself was admitted into the Ministry as a sort of Secretary to the Treasury, his religion, as a Protestant, being a bar to his receiving the title of “Comptroller-General,” though, in fact, he had the entire management of the finance of the kingdom, which, by artful misrepresentation of his measures and suppression of such important facts, that he had contracted loans to the amount of twenty millions of money, he represented as far more flourishing than in reality it was. At the end of two or three years he resigned his office in discontent at his services not receiving the rewards to which he considered himself entitled. But in 1788 he was again placed in office, on this occasion as Comptroller-General, and, practically, Prime Minister, a post for which he was utterly unfit; for he had not one qualification for a statesman, was a prey to the most overweening vanity, and his sole principles of action were a thirst for popularity and a belief in “the dominion of reason and the abstract virtues of mankind.” Under the influence of these notions he frittered away the authority and dignity of the King; and, as Napoleon afterwards truly told his grandson, was, in truth, the chief cause of all the horrors of the Revolution.]

I do not know yet what is settled about the spot of Lord Chatham’s interment. I am not more an enthusiast to his memory than you. I knew his faults and his defects–yet one fact cannot only not be controverted, but I doubt more remarkable every day–I mean, that under him we attained not only our highest elevation, but the most solid authority in Europe. When the names of Marlborough and Chatham are still pronounced with awe in France, our little cavils make a puny sound. Nations that are beaten cannot be mistaken.

I have been looking out for your friend a set of my heads of Painters, and I find I want six or seven. I think I have some odd ones in town; if I have not, I will have deficiencies supplied from the plates, though I fear they will not be good, as so many have been taken off. I should be very ungrateful for all your kindnesses, if I neglected any opportunity of obliging you, dear Sir. Indeed, our old and unalterable friendship is creditable to us both, and very uncommon between two persons who differ so much in their opinions relative to Church and State. I believe the reason is, that we are both sincere, and never meant to take advantage of our principles; which I allow is too common on both sides, and I own, too, fairly more common on my side of the question than on yours. There is a reason, too, for that; the honours and emoluments are in the gift of the Crown; the nation has no separate treasury to reward its friends.

If Mr. Tyrwhitt has opened his eyes to Chatterton’s forgeries,[1] there is an instance of conviction against strong prejudice! I have drawn up an account of my transaction with that marvellous young man; you shall see it one day or other, but I do not intend to print it. I have taken a thorough dislike to being an author; and if it would not look like begging you to compliment me, by contradicting me, I would tell you, what I am most seriously convinced of, that I find what small share of parts I had, grown dulled–and when I perceive it myself, I may well believe that others would not be less sharp-sighted. It is very natural; mine were spirits rather than parts; and as time has abated the one, it must surely destroy their resemblance to the other: pray don’t say a syllable in reply on this head, or I shall have done exactly what I said I would not do. Besides, as you have always been too partial to me, I am on my guard, and when I will not expose myself to my enemies, I must not listen to the prejudices of my friends; and as nobody is more partial to me than you, there is nobody I must trust less in that respect. Yours most sincerely.

[Footnote 1: Mr. Tyrrhwitt, a critic of great eminence, especially as the editor of “Chaucer,” had at first believed the poems published by Chatterton to be the genuine works of Rowley, but was afterwards convinced, as Dr. Johnson also was, by the inspection of the manuscripts which the poor youth called the “originals,” that they were quite recent.]

_ADMIRAL KEPPEL’S SUCCESS–THREATS OF INVASION–FUNERAL OF LORD CHATHAM._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _July 7_, 1778.

You tell me in yours of the 23rd of last month, which I received to-day, that my letters are necessary to your tranquillity. That is sufficient to make me write, though I have nothing very positive to tell you. I did not mention Admiral Keppel’s skirmish with and capture of two frigates of the Brest squadron; not because I thought it trifling, but concluding that it would produce immediate declaration of war; and, for the fact itself, I knew both our papers and the French would anticipate me. Indeed, Sir John Dick has talked to me so much of his frequency and punctuality with you, that I might have concluded he would not neglect so public an event; not that I trust to anybody else for sending you intelligence.

No Declaration has followed on either side. I, who know nothing but what everybody knows, am disposed to hope that both nations are grown rational; that is, humane enough to dislike carnage. Both kings are pacific by nature, and the voice of Europe now prefers legislators to _heroes_, which is but a name for destroyers of their species.

It is true, we are threatened with invasion.[1] You ask me why I seem to apprehend less than formerly? For many reasons. In the first place, I am above thirty years older. Can one fear anything in the dregs of life as at the beginning? Experience, too, has taught me that nothing happens in proportion to our conceptions. I have learnt, too, exceedingly to undervalue human policy. Chance and folly counteract most of its wisdom. From the “Memoires de Noailles”[2] I have learnt, that, between the years 1740 and 1750, when I,–ay, and my Lord Chesterfield too,–had such gloomy thoughts, France was trembling with dread of us. These are general reasons. My particular ones are, that, if France meditated a considerable blow, she has neglected her opportunity. Last year, we had neither army nor a manned fleet at home. Now, we have a larger and better army than ever we had in the island, and a strong fleet. Within these three days, our West India and Mediterranean fleets, for which we have been in great pain, are arrived, and bring not only above two millions, but such a host of sailors as will supply the deficiencies in our unequipped men-of-war. The country is covered with camps; General Conway, who has been to one of them, speaks with astonishment of the fineness of the men, of the regiments, of their discipline and manoeuvring. In short, the French Court has taught all our young nobility to be soldiers. The Duke of Grafton, who was the most indolent of ministers, is the most indefatigable of officers. For my part, I am almost afraid that there will be a larger military spirit amongst our men of quality than is wholesome for our constitution: France will have done us hurt enough, if she has turned us into generals instead of senators.

[Footnote 1: The design of invading England, first conceived by Philip II. of Spain and the Duke of Parma, had been entertained also by Louis XIV.; and after Walpole’s death ostentatious preparations for such an expedition were made in 1805 by Napoleon. But some years afterwards Napoleon told Metternich, the Austrian Prime Minister, that he had never really designed to undertake the enterprise, being convinced of the impossibility of succeeding in it, and that the sole object of his preparations and of the camp at Boulogne had been to throw Austria off her guard.]

[Footnote 2: The Duc de Noailles had been the French Commander-in-chief at the battle of Dettingen in 1743.]

I can conceive another reason why France should not choose to venture an invasion. It is certain that at least five American provinces wish for peace with us. Nor can I think that thirteen English provinces would be pleased at seeing England invaded. Any considerable blow received by us, would turn their new allies into haughty protectors. Should we accept a bad peace, America would find her treaty with them a very bad one: in short, I have treated you with speculations instead of facts. I know but one of the latter sort. The King’s army has evacuated Philadelphia, from having eaten up the country, and has returned to New York. Thus it is more compact, and has less to defend.

General Howe is returned, richer in money than laurels. I do not know, indeed, that his wealth is great.

Fanaticism in a nation is no novelty; but you must know, that, though the effects were so solid, the late appearance of enthusiasm about Lord Chatham was nothing but a general affectation of enthusiasm. It was a contention of hypocrisy between the Opposition and the Court, which did not last even to his burial. Not three of the Court attended it, and not a dozen of the Minority of any note. He himself said, between his fall in the House of Lords and his death, that, when he came to himself, not one of his old acquaintance of the Court but Lord Despencer so much as asked how he did. Do you imagine people are struck with the death of a man, who were not struck with the sudden appearance of his death? We do not counterfeit so easily on a surprise, as coolly; and, when we are cool on surprise, we do not grow agitated on reflection.

The last account I heard from Germany was hostile. Four days ago both the Imperial and Prussian Ministers[1] expected news of a battle. O, ye fathers of your people, do you thus dispose of your children? How many thousand lives does a King save, who signs a peace! It was said in jest of our Charles II., that he was the real _father_ of his people, so many of them did he beget himself. But tell me, ye divines, which is the most virtuous man, he who begets twenty bastards, or he who sacrifices a hundred thousand lives? What a contradiction is human nature! The Romans rewarded the man who got three children, and laid waste the world. When will the world know that peace and propagation are the two most delightful things in it? As his Majesty of France has found out the latter, I hope he will not forget the former.

[Footnote 1: Towards the close of 1777 Maximilian, the Elector of Bavaria, died, and the Emperor Joseph claimed many of his fiefs as having escheated to him. Frederic the Great, who was still jealous of Austria, endeavoured to form a league to aid the new Elector in his resistance to Joseph’s demands, and even invaded Bohemia with an army of eighty thousand men; but the Austrian army was equally strong. No action of any importance took place; and in the spring of 1779 the treaty of Teschen was concluded between the Empire, Prussia, and Bavaria, by which a small portion of the district claimed by Joseph was ceded to Austria.]

_SUGGESTION OF NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE–PARTITION OF POLAND._

TO THE HON. H.S. CONWAY.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _July_ 8, 1778.

I have had some conversation with a ministerial person, on the subject of pacification with France; and he dropped a hint, that as we should not have much of a good peace, the Opposition would make great clamour on it. I said a few words on the duty of Ministers to do what they thought right, be the consequence what it would. But as honest men do not want such lectures, and dishonest will not let them weigh, I waived that theme, to dwell on what is more likely to be persuasive, and which I am firmly persuaded is no less true than the former maxim; and that was, that the Ministers are _still_ so strong, that if they could get a peace that would save the nation, though not a brilliant or glorious one, the nation in general would be pleased with it, and the clamours of the Opposition be insignificant.

I added, what I think true, too, that no time is to be lost in treating; not only for preventing a blow, but from the consequences the first misfortune would have. The nation is not yet alienated from the Court, but it is growing so; is grown so enough, for any calamity to have violent effects. Any internal disturbance would advance the hostile designs of France. An insurrection from distress would be a double invitation to invasion; and, I am sure, much more to be dreaded, even personally, by the Ministers, than the ill-humours of Opposition for even an inglorious peace. To do the Opposition justice, it is not composed of incendiaries. Parliamentary speeches raise no tumults: but tumults would be a dreadful thorough bass to speeches. The Ministers do not know the strength they have left (supposing they apply it in time), if they are afraid of making any peace. They were too sanguine in making war; I hope they will not be too timid of making peace.

What do you think of an idea of mine of offering France a neutrality? that is, to allow her to assist both us and the Americans. I know she would assist only them: but were it not better to connive at her assisting them, without attacking us, than her doing both? A treaty with her would perhaps be followed by one with America. We are sacrificing all the essentials we _can_ recover, for a few words; and risking the independence of this country, for the nominal supremacy over America. France seems to leave us time for treating. She mad no scruple of begging peace of us in ’63, that she might lie by and recover her advantages. Was not that a wise precedent? Does not she _now_ show that it was? Is not policy the honour of nations? I mean, not morally, but has Europe left itself any other honour? And since it has really left itself no honour, and as little morality, does not the morality of a nation consist in its preserving itself in as much happiness as it can? The invasion of Portugal by Spain in the last war, and the partition of Poland,[1] have abrogated the law of nations. Kings have left no ties between one another. Their duty to their people is still allowed. He is a good King that preserves his people; and if temporising answers that end, is it not justifiable? You, who are as moral as wise, answer my questions. Grotius[2] is obsolete. Dr. Joseph and Dr. Frederic, with four hundred thousand commentators, are reading new lectures–and I should say, thank God, to one another, if the four hundred thousand commentators were not in worse danger than they. Louis XVI. is grown a casuist compared to those partitioners. Well, let us simple individuals keep our honesty, and bless our stars that we have not armies at our command, lest we should divide kingdoms that are at our _bienseance_! What a dreadful thing it is for such a wicked little imp as man to have absolute power! But I have travelled into Germany, when I meant to talk to you only of England; and it is too late to recall my text. Good night!

[Footnote 1: A partition of Poland had been proposed by the Great Elector of Brandenburgh as early as the middle of the seventeenth century, his idea being that he, the Emperor, and the King of Sweden should divide the whole country between them. At that time, however, the mutual jealousies of the three princes prevented the scheme from being carried out. But in 1770 the idea was revived by Frederic the Great, who sent his brother Henry to discuss it with the Czarina. She eagerly embraced it; and the new Emperor Joseph had so blind an admiration for Frederic, that it was not hard to induce him to become a confederate in the scheme of plunder. And the three allies had less difficulty than might have been expected in arranging the details. In extent of territory Austria was the principal gainer, her share being of sufficient importance to receive a new name as the kingdom of Galicia; the share of Prussia being West Prussia and Pomerania, with the exception of Dantzic and the fortress of Thorn; while Russia took Polish Livonia and the rich provinces to the east of the Dwina. But the spoilers were not long contented with their acquisitions. In 1791 intrigues among the Polish nobles, probably fomented by the Czarina herself, gave her a pretence for interfering in their affairs; and the result was a second partition, which gave the long-coveted port of Dantzic and a long district on the shore of the Baltic to Prussia, and such extensive provinces adjoining Russia to Catharine, that all that was left to the Polish sovereign was a small territory with a population that hardly amounted to four millions of subjects. The partition excited great indignation all over Europe, but in 1772 England was sufficiently occupied with the troubles beginning to arise in America, and France was still too completely under the profligate and imbecile rule of Louis XV. and Mme. du Barri, and too much weakened by her disasters in the Seven Years’ War, for any manly counsels or indication of justice and humanity to be expected from that country.]

[Footnote 2: Grotius (a Latinised form of Groot) was an eminent statesman and jurist of Holland at the beginning of the seventeenth century. He was a voluminous author; his most celebrated works being a treatise, “De jure belli et pacis,” and another on the “Truth of the Christian Religion.”]

[Illustration: VIEW OF GARDEN, STRAWBERRY HILL, FROM THE GREAT BED-CHAMBER.]

_UNSUCCESSFUL CRUISE OF KEPPEL–CHARACTER OF LORD CHATHAM._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _Oct._ 8, 1778.

As you are so earnest for news, I am concerned when I have not a paragraph to send you. It looks as if distance augmented your apprehensions; for, I assure you, at home we have lost almost all curiosity. Though the two fleets have been so long at sea, and though, before their last _sortie_, one heard nothing but _What news of the fleets?_ of late there has been scarcely any inquiry; and so the French one is returned to Brest, and ours is coming home. Admiral Keppel is very unlucky in having missed them, for they had not above twenty-five ships. Letters from Paris say that their camps, too, are to break up at the end of this month: but we do not intend to be the dupes of that _finesse_, if it is one, but shall remain on our guard. One must hope that winter will produce some negotiation; and that, peace. Indeed, as war is not declared, I conclude there is always some treating on the anvil; and, should it end well, at least this age will have made a step towards humanity, in omitting the ceremonial of proclamation, which seems to make it easier to cease being at war. But I am rather making out a proxy for a letter than sending you news. But, you see, even armies of hundred thousands in Germany can execute as little as we; and you must remember what the Grand Conde, or the great Prince of Orange–I forget which–said, that unmarried girls imagine husbands are always on duty, unmilitary men that soldiers are always fighting. One of the Duke of Marlborough’s Generals dining with the Lord Mayor, an Alderman who