A Letter Book Part 12

The day before I received your first epistle, a Gent. of my acquaintance brought me the _Monthly Review_ for February, that I might see what the candid and genteel authors of that work had said of mine. They observe to the publick, that _I have said_ C. Tishem was so skilled in the Greek Tongue, that she could read Galen in its original, which very few Physicians are able to do. Whether this was done maliciously, in order to bring the wrath of the aesculapians upon me, or inadvertently, I cannot say: but I may justly affirm, that they have used me very ill in that affair; since if they had read with attention, which they ought to have done before they attempted to give a character of the Book, they must have known that the whole account of that lady (which is but one page) is not mine, but borrowed with due acknowledgment from the _General Dictionary_. They are likewise pleased to inform the world that I have been rather too industrious in the undertaking, having introduced several women who hardly deserved a place in the work. I did not do this for want of materials; neither did I do it rashly, without advising with others of superior judgment in those affairs, of which number Mr. Professor Ward was one. But those pragmatical Censors seem to have but little acquaintance with those studies, or otherwise they might have observed that all our general Biographers, as Leland, Bale, Pits, Wood, and Tanner, have trod the very same steps; and have given an account of all the authors they could meet with, good and bad, just as they found them: and yet, I have never heard of anyone that had courage or ill-nature enough, to endeavour to expose them for it. While I was ruminating on these affairs, three or four letters came to my hands, and perceiving one of them come from my worthy friend the Dean of Exeter, I eagerly broke it open, and was perfectly astonished to find myself charged with _party zeal_ in my book; and that from thence the most candid reader might conclude the author to be both a Church and State Tory. But after having thoroughly considered all the pa.s.sages objected to, and not finding the least tincture of either Whig or Tory principles contained in them, I began to cheer up my drooping spirits, in hopes that I might possibly out-live my supposed crime; but, alas! to my still greater confusion! when I opened my next letter from a Tory acquaintance, I was like one thunderstruck at the contents of it. He discharges his pa.s.sionate but ill-grounded resentment upon me most furiously. He tells me, he did not imagine Magdalen College could have produced such a rank Whig. He reproaches me with want of due esteem for the Stuart Family, to whom he says I have shewn a deadly hatred, and he gives me, as he imagines, three flagrant instances of it. 1. That I have unseasonably and maliciously printed a letter of Queen Elizabeth's, in order to blacken the memory of Mary Queen of Scots, and that too, at a time when her character began to shine as bright as the Sun. 2dly. That I have endeavoured to make her memory odious, by representing her as wanting natural affection to her only son, in my note at p. 162, where he says I have printed part of a Will, &c. And 3dly, tho' she was cut off in such a barbarous and unprecedented manner, yet she has fallen unlamented by me. I am likewise charged with having an affection to Puritanism; the reasons for which are, my giving the Life of a Puritan Bishop's Lady, which it seems need not have been done by me, had I not had a particular regard for her, since it had been done before by Goodwin who reprinted her Devotions. And not content with this, I have blemished my book with the memoirs of a Dissenting teacher's wife, and have been kind enough to heighten even the character given her by her indulgent husband: and that I am very fond of quoting Fox and Burnet upon all occasions. These are thought strong indications of the above-mentioned charge. It may be thought entirely unnecessary to answer any of the objections from Exeter, after having given you this Summary of my kind Friend's Candid Epistle; but to you, Sir, to whom I could disclose the very secrets of my soul, I will endeavour to say a word or two upon this subject, and make you my Confessor upon this occasion; and I will do it with as much sincerity, as if I lay on my death-bed. Before I was fourteen years old, I read over Fox's Acts and Monuments of the Church, and several of the best books of Polemical Divinity, which strongly fortified me in the Protestant Religion; and gave me the greatest abhorrence to Popery. And soon after I perused Mercurius Rusticus, The Eleventh Persecution, Lloyd, Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, and many others, which gave me almost as bad an opinion of the Dissenters. But then I learned in my childhood _to live in Charity with all Men_, and I have used my best endeavours to put this doctrine in practice all my life long. I never thought ill, or quarrelled with any man merely because he had been educated in principles different to mine; and yet I have been acquainted with many papists, dissenters, &c. and if I found any of them learned, ingenuous, and modest, I always found my heart well-disposed for contracting a firm friendship with them: and notwithstanding that, I dare believe that all those people will, with joint consent, vouch for me, that I have ever been steady in my own principles.

I can truly affirm that never any one engaged in such a work, with an honester heart, or executed it with more unbia.s.sed integrity, than I have done. And indeed, I take the unkind censures pa.s.sed upon me by the furious uncharitable zealots of both parties, to be the strongest proof of it. And after all, I dare challenge any man, whether Protestant, Papist, or Dissenter, Whig or Tory, (and I have drawn up and published memoirs of women who professed all those principles) to prove me guilty of partiality, or to shew that I have made any uncharitable reflections on any person, and whenever that is done, I will faithfully promise to make a public recantation. I wish, Sir, you would point out to me any one unbecoming word or expression which has fell from me on Bishop Burnet. Had I had the least inclination to have lessened his character, I did not want proper materials to have done it. I have in my possession two original letters from Bishop Gibson and Mr Norris of Bemerton, to Dr Charlett, which, if published, would lessen your too great esteem for him. And what, I beseech you, Sir, have I said in praise of Mrs Hopton and her pious and useful labours, which they do not well deserve, and which can possibly give any just offence to any good man? I dare not censure or condemn a good thing merely because it borders upon the Church of Rome. I rather rejoice that she retains any thing I can fairly approve. Should I attempt to do this, might I not condemn the greater part of our Liturgy, &c.? and should I not stand self-condemned for so doing? I cannot for my life perceive that I have said any thing of that excellent woman, which she does not merit; and I must beg leave to say that I think her letter to F. Turbeville deserves to be wrote in letters of gold, and ought to be carefully read and preserved by all Protestants. Mary Queen of Scots fell under my notice, no otherwise than as a learned woman. The affairs you mention would by no means suit my peaceable temper. I was too well acquainted with the warm disputes, and fierce engagement both of domestic and foreign writers on that head, once to touch upon the subject. And indeed, unless I had been the happy discoverer of some secret springs of action which would have given new information to the public, it would have been excessive folly in me to intermeddle in an affair of so tender a nature, and of so great importance.

I have often blamed my dear friend Mr. Brome for destroying his valuable collections, but I now cease to wonder at it. He spent his leisure hours pleasantly and inoffensively, and when old age came on, which not only abates thirst, but oftentimes gives a disrelish to these and almost all other things, which do not help to make our pa.s.sage into eternity more easy, he then destroyed them (I dare believe) in order to prevent the malicious reflections of an ill-natured world.

I have always been a pa.s.sionate lover of History and Antiquity, Biography, and Northern Literature: and as I have ever hated idleness, so I have in my time filled many hundred sheets with my useless scribble, the greater part of which I will commit to the flames shortly, to prevent their giving me any uneasiness in my last moments.[107]

[May 22, 1753.]

FOOTNOTES:

[106] Ballard's _Memoirs of Learned Ladies of Great Britain who have been celebrated for their writings or skill in the Learned Languages Arts & Sciences_, appeared at Oxford in 4to (1752) and 8vo (1775). It contains some sixty lives, the most noteworthy names being those of Queens Elizabeth and Mary of Scotland, Lady Jane Grey, Margaret Countess of Richmond (_the_ "Lady Margaret"), the d.u.c.h.ess of Newcastle, Lady Winchelsea, the two Countesses of Pembroke ("Sidney's sister" and Anne Clifford), Dame Juliana Barnes or Berners, Dryden's Anne Killigrew, Dorothy Pakington (the alleged author of _The Whole Duty of Man_), and "the matchless Orinda."

[107] Perhaps a note should be added on "Mrs. Hopton" and "F.

Turbe(r)ville." The former, born Susanna Harvey (1627-1709), was the wife of a Welsh judge, and wrote devotional works. The latter, Henry T.

(d. 1678: the "F" of text is of course "Father"), was a writer of doctrinal and controversial manuals on the Roman side.

THOMAS GRAY (1716-1771)

The chief thing to add to what has been said of Gray in the Introduction is something that may draw attention to a curious feature of his letters, not there distinctly noticed. Letters, it must be sufficiently seen even from this little book, have a curious _variety_ of relation to the characters, personal and literary, of their writers.

Sometimes they show us phases entirely or almost entirely concealed in the published works; sometimes again, without definitely revealing new aspects, they complete and enforce the old; while, in yet a third, though perhaps the smallest, cla.s.s of instances, they are as it were results of the same governing formula as that of the published works themselves, the difference lying almost wholly in the subjects and in the methods and circ.u.mstances of treatment. Gray belongs to this last division. There is not, of course, in his letters the same severity of discipline and restriction of utterance, that we find in his poems. But that, in letters, was impossible--at least in letters that should supply tolerable reading. Yet the same general principle, which was somewhat exaggerated in the phrase about his "never speaking out," appears in them. There is always a certain restraint (at least in all that have been published) and it would probably have extended in proportion to others, however little their subject might seem compatible with it. In what we have it gives a curious _seasoning_--something which preserves as well as flavours like salt or vinegar. Of those which follow the first is an early one. Mason's apologetic note is to the effect that it "may appear whimsical" but it gives him an opportunity of remarking that Mr. Gray was "extremely skilled in the customs of the ancient Romans,"

both utterances being characteristic, to some extent of the time but to a greater of the writer. The second letter, to Gray's most intimate friend Dr. Wharton, and more than a quarter of a century later, is a good example of the _variety_ of these epistles--scenery, literature, politics, science, gossip and what not, being all dealt with.

20. TO RICHARD WEST [EXTRACT]

ROME, May, 1740.

I am to-day just returned from Alba, a good deal fatigued; for you know the Appian is somewhat tiresome. We dined at Pompey's; he indeed was gone for a few days to his Tusculan, but, by the care of his Villicus, we made an admirable meal. We had the dugs of a pregnant sow, a peac.o.c.k, a dish of thrushes, a n.o.ble scarus just fresh from the Tyrrhene, and some conchylia of the Lake with garum sauce: For my part I never eat better at Lucullus's table. We drank half-a-dozen cyathi a-piece of ancient Alban to Pholoe's health; and after bathing, and playing an hour at ball, we mounted our essedum again, and proceeded up the mount to the temple. The priests there entertained us with an account of a wonderful shower of bird's eggs that had fallen two days before, which had no sooner touched the ground, but they were converted into gudgeons; as also that, the night past, a dreadful voice had been heard out of the Adytum, which spoke Greek during a full half-hour, but n.o.body understood it. But quitting my Romanities, to your great joy and mine, let me tell you in plain English, that we come from Albano. The present town lies within the inclosure of Pompey's Villa in ruins. The Appian way runs through it, by the side of which, a little farther, is a large old tomb, with five pyramids upon it, which the learned suppose to be the burying-place of the family, because they do not know whose it can be else. But the vulgar a.s.sure you it is the sepulchre of the Curiatii, and by that name (such is their power) it goes. One drives to Castle Gandolfo, a house of the Pope's, situated on the top of one of the Collinette, that forms a brim to the basin, commonly called the Alban lake. It is seven miles round; and directly opposite to you, on the other side, rises the Mons Alba.n.u.s, much taller than the rest, along whose side are still discoverable (not to common eyes) certain little ruins of the old Alba Longa. They had need be very little, as having been nothing but ruins ever since the days of Tullus Hostilius. On its top is a house of the Constable Colonna's, where stood the temple of Jupiter Latialis. At the foot of the hill Gandolfo, are the famous outlets of the lake, built with hewn stone, a mile and a half under ground. Livy you know, amply informs us of the foolish occasion of this expence, and gives me this opportunity of displaying all my erudition, that I may appear considerable in your eyes. This is the prospect from one window of the palace. From another you have the whole Campagna, the City, Antium, and the Tyrrhene sea (twelve miles distant) so distinguishable, that you may see the vessels sailing upon it. All this is charming. Mr. Walpole says, our memory sees more than our eyes in this country. Which is extremely true; since, for realities, Windsor or Richmond Hill is infinitely preferable to Albano or Frescati. I am now at home, and going to the window to tell you it is the most beautiful of Italian nights, which, in truth, are but just begun (so backward has the spring been here, and every where else, they say) There is a moon! there are stars for you! Do not you hear the fountain? Do not you smell the orange flowers? That building yonder is the convent of S. Isidore; and that eminence, with the cypress trees and pines upon it, the top of M.

Quirinal. This is all true, and yet my prospect is not two hundred yards in length.

21. TO WHARTON

Dear Doctor

Whatever my pen may do, I am sure my thoughts expatiate nowhere oftener or with more pleasure, than to Old-Park. I hope you have made my peace with Miss Deborah. it is certain, whether her name were in my letter or not, she was as present to my memory, as the rest of the little family, & I desire you would present her with two kisses in my name, & one a-piece to all the others: for I shall take the liberty to kiss them all (great & small) as you are to be my proxy.

In spite of the rain, w^ch I think continued with very short intervals till the beginning of this month, & quite effaced the summer from the year, I made a shift to pa.s.s May & June not disagreeably in Kent. I was surprised at the beauty of the road to Canterbury, which (I know not why) had not struck me in the same manner before. The whole country is a rich and well-cultivated garden, orchards, cherry-grounds, hop-gardens, intermix'd with corn & frequent villages, gentle risings cover'd with wood, and everywhere the Thames and Medway breaking in upon the Landscape with all their navigation. It was indeed owing to the bad weather, that the whole scene was dress'd in that tender emerald-green, w^ch one usually sees only for a fortnight in the opening of spring, & this continued till I left the country. My residence was eight miles east of Canterbury in a little quiet valley on the skirts of Barhamdown. In these parts the whole soil is chalk, and whenever it holds up, in half an hour it is dry enough to walk out. I took the opportunity of three or four days fine weather to go into the Isle of Thanet, saw Margate (w^ch is Bartholomew-Fair by the sea side), Ramsgate, & other places there, and so came by Sandwich, Deal, Dover, Folkstone, & Hithe, back again. The coast is not like Hartlepool: there are no rocks, but only chalky cliffs of no great height, till you come to Dover. There indeed they are n.o.ble & picturesque, and the opposite coasts of France begin to bound your view, w^ch was left before to range unlimited by anything but the horizon: yet it is by no means a _shipless_ sea, but everywhere peopled with white sails & vessels of all sizes in motion. And take notice (except in the Isle, w^ch is all corn-fields, and has very little inclosure) there are in all places hedgerows & tall trees even within a few yards of the beach.

Particularly Hithe stands on an eminence cover'd with wood. I shall confess we had fires of a night (ay, & a day too) several times even in June: but don't go & take advantage of this, for it was the most untoward year that ever I remember.

Your Friend Rousseau (I doubt) grows tired of M^r Davenport and Derbyshire. He has picked a quarrel with David Hume & writes him letters of 14 pages Folio upbraiding him of all his _noirceurs_. Take one only as a specimen, he says, that at Calais they chanced to sleep in the same room together, & that he overheard David talking in his sleep, and saying, _Ah! Je le tiens, ce Jean-Jacques la._ In short (I fear) for want of persecution & admiration (for these are real complaints) he will go back to the Continent.

What shall I say to you about the Ministry? I am as angry as a Common-council Man of London about my L^d Chatham: but a little more patient, & will hold my tongue till the end of the year. In the mean time I do mutter in secret & to you, that to quit the house of Commons, his natural strength; to sap his own popularity & grandeur (which no one but himself could have done) by a.s.suming a foolish t.i.tle; & to hope that he could win by it and attach to him a Court, that hate him, & will dismiss him, as soon as ever they dare, was the weakest thing, that ever was done by so great a Man. Had it not been for this, I should have rejoiced at the breach between him & L^d Temple, & at the union between him & the D: of Grafton & M^r Conway: but patience! we shall see!

St:[108] perhaps is in the country (for he hoped for a month's leave of absence) and if you see him, you will learn more than I can tell you.

Mason is at Aston. He is no longer so anxious about his wife's health, as he was, tho' I find she still has a cough, & moreover I find she is not with child: but he made such a bragging, how could one choose but believe him.

When I was in town, I mark'd in my pocket-book the utmost limits & divisions of the two columns in your Thermometer, and asked Mr. Ayscough the Instrument-Maker on Ludgate Hill, what scales they were. He immediately a.s.sured me, that one was Fahrenheit's, & shew'd me one exactly so divided. The other he took for Reaumur's, but, as he said there were different scales of his contrivance, he could not exactly tell, w^ch of them it was. Your Brother told me, you wanted to know, who wrote Duke Wharton's life in the Biography: I think, it is chiefly borrowed from a silly book enough call'd _Memoirs of that Duke_: but who put it together there, no one can inform me. The only person certainly known to write in that vile collection (I mean these latter volumes) is D^r Nicholls, who was expell'd here for stealing books.

Have you read the _New Bath-Guide_?[109] it is the only thing in fashion, & is a new & original kind of humour. Miss Prue's Conversion I doubt you will paste down, as S^r W: S^t Quintyn did, before he carried it to his daughter. Yet I remember you all read _Crazy Tales_[110]

without pasting. Buffon's first collection of Monkeys are come out (it makes the 14^th volume) something, but not much, to my edification: for he is pretty well acquainted with their persons, but not with their manners.

I shall be glad to hear, how far M^rs Ettrick has succeeded, & when you see an end to her troubles. my best respects to Mrs. Wharton, & compliments to all your family: I will not name them, least I should affront any body. Adieu, dear S^r,

I am most sincerely yours,

TG:

August 26, 1766, Pembroke College.

Mr. Brown is gone to see his Brother near Margate. When is L^d Str:[111]

to be married? If M^r and M^rs Jonathan are with you, I desire my compliments.

FOOTNOTES:

[108] "St." is Richard Stonhewer, a Fellow of Peterhouse, secretary to the Duke of Grafton, and a man of considerable, though not public, importance in politics.

[109] Anstey's--referred to in the Introduction.

[110] By Sterne's friend, John Hall Stevenson.

[111] Lord Strathmore.

HORACE WALPOLE (1717-1797)

[AND W. M. THACKERAY].

As much has been already said of Horace Walpole's letters, but practically nothing of his other works except his novel and his play, something more may be added here to show that he was not _merely_ a "trifler." His private press at "Strawberry" was mainly a means of amus.e.m.e.nt to him, like a billiard-room or a tennis-court. But it provided some useful books--such as editions of Anthony Hamilton's _Memoirs of Grammont_, of Lord Herbert of Cherbury's _Life_ and of part of Gray's _Poems_. He had neither historic knowledge nor historic sense enough to deal satisfactorily with such a subject as _Historic Doubts on Richard III._, though the subject itself was quite worth dealing with. But his _Catalogue of Royal and n.o.ble Authors_, his _Anecdotes of Painting in England_, and his _Catalogue of Engravers_ are not without value; and he could usefully handle the history of his own time, with proper corrections for his prejudices, etc. He was weakest of all as a literary critic: and his dealings with Chatterton were most unfortunate, though the mischief done was not intentional, and might not have been serious in any other case. These things have been said with a definite purpose--that of showing that Horace's interests, if seldom deep, were unusually wide. Now though width of interest is not, as Cowper's case shows, indispensable to goodness of letter-writing, it is a very great qualification for it, as giving to the result variety, colour, and "bite."

At the same time, unless one had s.p.a.ce on a very different scale from any possible here, it would be _im_possible to ill.u.s.trate this "extensive curiosity" as they called it then: and Horace ought to be shown here in his _most_ native element as a chronicler of "society." I have thought it worth while to subjoin for comparison Thackeray's wonderful _pastiche_ in _The Virginians_, which is almost better Horace than Horace himself.[112]

22. TO THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY

ARLINGTON STREET, April 31. 1773

It is most true, madam, that I did purpose to regale myself with a visit to Ampthill; but this winter, which has trod hard upon last week's summer, blunted my intention for a while, though revivable in finer weather. Oh! but I had another reason for changing my mind; you are leaving Ampthill, and I do not mean only to write my name in your park-keeper's book. Yes, in spite of your ladyship's low spirited mood, you are coming from Ampthill, and you are to be at Strawberry Hill to-morrow se'nnight. You may not be in the secret, but Lord Ossory and I have settled it, and you are to be p.a.w.ned to me while he is at Newmarket. He told me you certainly would if I asked it, and as they used to say in ancient writ, I do beg it upon the knees of my heart.

Nay, it is unavoidable; for though a lady's word may be ever so crackable, you cannot have the conscience to break your husband's word, so I depend upon it. I have asked Mr. Craufurd to meet you, but begged he would refuse me, that I might be sure of his coming. Mrs Meynel has taken another year's lease of her house, so you probably, madam, will not be tired of me for the livelong day for the whole time you shall honour my mansion. Your face will be well and your fever gone a week before to-morrow se'nnight, and you will look as well as ever you did in your life, that is, as you have done lately, which is better than ever you did before. You must not, in truth, expect that I your shepherd should be quite so fit to figure in a fan mount. Besides the gout for six months, which makes some flaws in the bloom of elderly Arcadians, I have been so far from keeping sheep for the last ten days, that I have kept nothing but bad hours; and have been such a rake that I put myself in mind of a poor old cripple that I saw formerly at Hogarth's auction: he bid for the Rake's Progress, saying, "I will buy my own progress,"

though he looked as if he had no more t.i.tle to it than I have, but by limping and sitting up. In short, I have been at four b.a.l.l.s since yesterday se'nnight, though I had the prudence not to stay supper at Lord Stanley's. That festival was very expensive, for it is the fashion now to make romances rather than b.a.l.l.s. In the hall was a band of French horns and clarionets in laced uniforms and feathers. The dome of the staircase was beautifully illuminated with coloured gla.s.s lanthorns; in the ante-room was a bevy of vestals in white habits, making tea; in the next, a drapery of sarcenet, that with a very funereal air crossed the chimney, and depended in vast festoons over the sconces. The third chamber's doors were heightened with candles in gilt vases, and the ballroom was formed into an oval with benches above each other, not unlike pews, and covered with red serge, above which were arbours of flowers, red and green pilasters, more sarcenet, and Lord March's gla.s.ses, which he had lent, as an upholsterer asked Lord Stanley 300l.

for the loan of some. He had burst open the side of the wall to build an orchestra, with a pendant mirror to reflect the dancers, a la Guisnes; and the musicians were in scarlet robes, like the candle-snuffers who represent the senates of Venice at Drury Lane. There were two more chambers at which I never arrived for the crowd. The seasons, danced by himself, the younger Storer, the Duc de Lauzun and another, the youngest Miss Stanley, Miss Poole, the youngest Wrottesley and another Miss, who is likewise anonymous in my memory, were in errant shepherdly dresses without invention, and Storer and Miss Wrottesley in banians with furs, for winter, c.o.c.k and hen. In six rooms below were magnificent suppers. I was not quite so sober last night at Mons. de Guisnes', where the evening began with a ball of children, from eighteen to four years old.

They danced amazingly well, yet disappointed me, so many of them were ugly; but Dr. Delawarr's two eldest daughters and the Ancaster infanta performed a pas de trois as well as Mlle. Heinel, and the two eldest were pretty; yet I promise you, madam, the next age will be a thousand degrees below the present in beauty. The most interesting part was to observe the anxiety of the mothers while their children danced or supped; they supped at ten in three rooms. I should not omit telling you that the Vernons, especially the eldest, were not the homeliest part of the show. The former quadrilles then came again upon the stage, and Harry Conway the younger was so astonished at the agility of Mrs.