Letters Of Horace Walpole Volume Ii Part 8

[Footnote 1: Count Orloff was one of the Czarina's earlier lovers, and was universally understood to have been the princ.i.p.al agent in the murder of her husband.]

We have had two or three simpletons return from Russia, charmed with the murderess, believing her innocent, _because_ she spoke graciously to _them_ in the drawing-room. I don't know what the present Grand Signior's name is, Osman, or Mustapha, or what, but I am extremely on his side against Catherine of Zerbst; and I never intend to ask him for a farthing, nor write panegyrics on him for pay, like Voltaire and Diderot; so you need not say a word to him of my good wishes. Benedict XIV. deserved my friendship, but being a sound Protestant, one would not, you know, make all Turk and Pagan and Infidel princes too familiar.

Adieu!

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR ROBERT WALPOLE

_From a mezzotint by J. Simon after a picture by Sir G.o.dfrey Kneller_]

_WILKES--BURKE'S PAMPHLET--PREDICTION OF AMERICAN REPUBLICS--EXTRAVAGANCE IN ENGLAND._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _May_ 6, 1770.

I don't know whether Wilkes is subdued by his imprisonment, or waits for the rising of Parliament, to take the field; or whether his dignity of Alderman has dulled him into prudence, and the love of feasting; but hitherto he has done nothing but go to City banquets and sermons, and sit at Guildhall as a sober magistrate. With an inversion of the proverb, "Si ex quovis Mercurio fit lignum!" What do you Italians think of Harlequin Potesta?[1] In truth, his party is crumbled away strangely.

Lord Chatham has talked on the Middles.e.x election till n.o.body will answer him; and Mr. Burke (Lord Rockingham's governor) has published a pamphlet[2] that has sown the utmost discord between that faction and the supporters of the Bill of Rights. Mrs. Macaulay[3] has written against it. In Parliament their numbers are shrunk to nothing, and the session is ending very triumphantly for the Court. But there is another scene opened of a very different aspect. You have seen the accounts from Boston. The tocsin seems to be sounded to America. I have many visions about that country, and fancy I see twenty empires and republics forming upon vast scales over all that continent, which is growing too mighty to be kept in subjection to half a dozen exhausted nations in Europe. As the latter sinks, and the others rise, they who live between the eras will be a sort of Noahs, witnesses to the period of the old world and origin of the new. I entertain myself with the idea of a future senate in Carolina and Virginia, where their future patriots will harangue on the austere and incorruptible virtue of the ancient English! will tell their auditors of our disinterestedness and scorn of bribes and pensions, and make us blush in our graves at their ridiculous panegyrics. Who knows but even our Indian usurpations and villanies may become topics of praise to American schoolboys? As I believe our virtues are extremely like those of our predecessors the Romans, so I am sure our luxury and extravagance are too.

[Footnote 1: Podesta was an officer in some of the smaller Italian towns, somewhat corresponding to our mayor. The name is Italianised from the Roman Potestas--

Hajus, quo trahitur, praetextam sumere mavis, An Fidenarum, Gabiorumque esse Potestas.

(Juv., x. 100).]

[Footnote 2: The pamphlet is, "Thoughts on the Present Discontents,"

founding them especially on the unconst.i.tutional influence of "the King's friends."]

[Footnote 3: Mrs. Macaulay was the wife of a London physician, and auth.o.r.ess of a "History of England" from the accession of James I. to that of George I., written in a spirit of the fiercest republicanism, but long since forgotten.]

What do you think of a winter Ranelagh[1] erecting in Oxford Road, at the expense of sixty thousand pounds? The new bank, including the value of the ground, and of the houses demolished to make room for it, will cost three hundred thousand; and erected, as my Lady Townley[2] says, _by sober citizens too_! I have touched before to you on the incredible profusion of our young men of fashion. I know a younger brother who literally gives a flower-woman half a guinea every morning for a bunch of roses for the nosegay in his b.u.t.ton-hole. There has lately been an auction of stuffed birds; and, as natural history is in fashion, there are physicians and others who paid forty and fifty guineas for a single Chinese pheasant; you may buy a live one for five. After this, it is not extraordinary that pictures should be dear. We have at present three exhibitions. One West,[3] who paints history in the taste of Poussin, gets three hundred pounds for a piece not too large to hang over a chimney. He has merit, but is hard and heavy, and far unworthy of such prices. The rage to see these exhibitions is so great, that sometimes one cannot pa.s.s through the streets where they are. But it is incredible what sums are raised by mere exhibitions of anything; a new fashion, and to enter at which you pay a shilling or half-a-crown. Another rage, is for prints of English portraits: I have been collecting them above thirty years, and originally never gave for a mezzotinto above one or two shillings. The lowest are now a crown; most, from half a guinea to a guinea. Lately, I a.s.sisted a clergyman [Granger] in compiling a catalogue of them; since the publication, scarce heads in books, not worth threepence, will sell for five guineas. Then we have Etruscan vases, made of earthenware, in Staffordshire, [by Wedgwood] from two to five guineas, and _ormoulu_, never made here before, which succeeds so well, that a tea-kettle, which the inventor offered for one hundred guineas, sold by auction for one hundred and thirty. In short, we are at the height of extravagance and improvements, for we do improve rapidly in taste as well as in the former. I cannot say so much for our genius.

Poetry is gone to bed, or into our prose; we are like the Romans in that too. If we have the arts of the Antonines,--we have the fustian also.

[Footnote 1: _"A winter Ranelagh._"--the Pantheon in Oxford Street.]

[Footnote 2: Lady Townley is the princ.i.p.al character in "The Provoked Husband."]

[Footnote 3: West, as a painter, was highly esteemed by George III., and, on the death of Sir J. Reynolds, succeeded him as President of the Royal Academy.]

Well! what becomes of your neighbours, the Pope and Turk? is one Babylon to fall, and the other to moulder away? I begin to tremble for the poor Greeks; they will be sacrificed like the Catalans, and left to be impaled for rebellion, as soon as that vainglorious woman the Czarina has glutted her l.u.s.t of fame, and secured Azoph by a peace, which I hear is all she insists on keeping. What strides modern ambition takes! _We_ are the successors of Aurungzebe; and a virago under the Pole sends a fleet into the Aegean Sea to rouse the ghosts of Leonidas and Epaminondas, and burn the capital of the second Roman Empire! Folks now scarce meddle with their next door neighbours; as many English go to visit St. Peter's who never thought of stepping into St. Paul's.

I shall let Lord Beauchamp know your readiness to oblige him, probably to-morrow, as I go to town. The spring is so backward here that I have little inducement to stay; not an entire leaf is out on any tree, and I have heard a syren as much as a nightingale. Lord Fitzwilliam, who, I suppose, is one of your latest acquaintance, is going to marry Lady Charlotte Ponsonby, Lord Besborough's second daughter, a pretty, sensible, and very amiable girl. I seldom tell you that sort of news, but when the parties are very fresh in your memory. Adieu!

_MASQUERADES IN FASHION--A LADY'S CLUB._

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _May_ 6, 1770.

If you are like me, you are fretting at the weather. We have not a leaf, yet, large enough to make an ap.r.o.n for a Miss Eve of two years old.

Flowers and fruits, if they come at all this year, must meet together as they do in a Dutch picture; our lords and ladies, however, couple as if it were the real _Gioventu dell' anno_. Lord Albemarle, you know, has disappointed all his brothers and my niece; and Lord Fitzwilliam is declared _sposo_ to Lady Charlotte Ponsonby. It is a pretty match, and makes Lord Besborough as happy as possible.

Masquerades proceed in spite of Church and King. That knave the Bishop of London persuaded that good soul the Archbishop to remonstrate against them; but happily the age prefers silly follies to serious ones, and dominos, _comme de raison_, carry it against lawn sleeves.

There is a new Inst.i.tution that begins to make, and if it proceeds, will make a considerable noise. It is a club of _both_ s.e.xes to be erected at Almack's, on the model of that of the men of White's. Mrs. Fitzroy, Lady Pembroke, Mrs. Meynell, Lady Molyneux, Miss Pelham, and Miss Loyd, are the foundresses. I am ashamed to say I am of so young and fashionable a society; but as they are people I live with, I choose to be idle rather than morose. I can go to a young supper, without forgetting how much sand is run out of the hour-gla.s.s. Yet I shall never pa.s.s a triste old age in turning the Psalms into Latin or English verse. My plan is to pa.s.s away calmly; cheerfully if I can; sometimes to amuse myself with the rising generation, but to take care not to fatigue them, nor weary them with old stories, which will not interest them, as their adventures do not interest me. Age would indulge prejudices if it did not sometimes polish itself against younger acquaintance; but it must be the work of folly if one hopes to contract friendships with them, or desires it, or thinks one can become the same follies, or expects that they should do more than bear one for one's good-humour. In short, they are a pleasant medicine, that one should take care not to grow fond of. Medicines hurt when habit has annihilated their force; but you see I am in no danger. I intend by degrees to decrease my opium, instead of augmenting the dose.

Good night! You see I never let our long-lived friendship drop, though you give it so few opportunities of breathing.

_THE PRINCESS OF WALES IS GONE TO GERMANY--TERRIBLE ACCIDENT IN PARIS._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _June_ 15, 1770.

I have no public event to tell you, though I write again sooner than I purposed. The journey of the Princess Dowager to Germany is indeed an extraordinary circ.u.mstance, but besides its being a week old, as I do not know the motives, I have nothing to say upon it. It is much canva.s.sed and sifted, and yet perhaps she was only in search of a little repose from the torrents of abuse that have been poured upon her for some years. Yesterday they publicly sung about the streets a ballad, the burthen of which was, _the cow has left her calf_. With all this we are grown very quiet, and Lord North's behaviour is so sensible and moderate that he offends n.o.body.

Our family has lost a branch, but I cannot call it a misfortune. Lord Cholmondeley died last Sat.u.r.day. He was seventy, and had a const.i.tution to have carried him to a hundred, if he had not destroyed it by an intemperance, especially in drinking, that would have killed anybody else in half the time. As it was, he had outlived by fifteen years all his set, who have reeled into the ferry-boat so long before him. His grandson seems good and amiable, and though he comes into but a small fortune for an earl, five-and-twenty hundred a-year, his uncle the general may re-establish him upon a great footing--but it will not be in his life, and the general does not sail after his brother on a sea of claret.

You have heard details, to be sure, of the horrible catastrophe at the fireworks at Paris.[1] Francees, the French minister, told me the other night that the number of the killed is so great that they now try to stifle it; my letters say between five and six hundred! I think there were not fewer than ten coach-horses trodden to death. The mob had poured down from the _Etoile_ by thousands and ten thousands to see the illuminations, and did not know the havoc they were occasioning. The impulse drove great numbers into the Seine, and those met with the most favourable deaths.

[Footnote 1: The Dauphin had been married to the Archd.u.c.h.ess Marie Antoinette on May 16th, and on May 30th the city of Paris closed a succession of b.a.l.l.s and banquets with which they had celebrated the marriage of the heir of the monarchy by a display of fireworks in the Place Louis XV., in which the ingenuity of the most fashionable pyrotechnists had been exhausted to outshine all previous displays of the sort. But towards the end of the exhibition one of the explosives set fire to a portion of the platforms on which the different figures were constructed, and in a moment the whole woodwork was in a flame.

Three sides of the Place were enclosed, and the fourth was so blocked up with carriages, that the spectators, who saw themselves surrounded with flames, had no way to escape open. The carriage-horses, too, became terrified and unmanageable. In their panic-stricken flight the spectators trampled one another down; hundreds fell, and were crushed to death by their companions; hundreds were pushed into the river and drowned. The number of killed could never be precisely ascertained; but it was never estimated below six hundred, and was commonly believed to have greatly exceeded that number, as many of the victims were of the poorer cla.s.s--many, too, the bread-winners of their families. The Dauphin and Dauphiness devoted the whole of their month's income to the relief of the sufferers; and Marie Antoinette herself visited many of the families whose loss seemed to have been the most severe: this personal interest in their affliction which she thus displayed making a deep impression on the citizens.]

This is a slight summer letter, but you will not be sorry it is so short, when the dearth of events is the cause. Last year I did not know but we might have a battle of Edgehill[1] by this time. At present, my Lord Chatham could as soon raise money as raise the people; and Wilkes will not much longer have more power of doing either. If you were not busy in burning Constantinople, you could not have a better opportunity for taking a trip to England. Have you never a wish this way? Think what satisfaction it would be to me?--but I never advise; nor let my own inclinations judge for my friends. I had rather suffer their absence, than have to reproach myself with having given them bad counsel. I therefore say no more on what would make me so happy. Adieu!

[Footnote 1: Edgehill was the first battle in the Great Rebellion, fought October 23, 1642.]

_FALL OF THE DUC DE CHOISEUL'S MINISTRY._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _Sat.u.r.day evening, Dec._ 29, 1770.

We are alarmed, or very glad, we don't know which. The Duke de Choiseul is fallen! but we cannot tell yet whether the mood of his successors will be peaceable or martial. The news arrived yesterday morning, and the event happened but last Monday evening. He was allowed but three hours to prepare for his journey, and ordered to retire to his seat at Chanteloup; but there are letters that say, _qu'il ira plus loin_. The Duke de Praslin is banished too--a disagreeable man; but his fate is a little hard, for he was just going to resign the Marine to Chatelet, who, by the way, is forbidden to visit Choiseul. I shall shed no tears for Chatelet, the most peevish and insolent of men, our bitter enemy, and whom M. de Choiseul may thank in some measure for his fall; for I believe while Chatelet was here, he drew the Spaniards into the attack of Falkland's Island. Choiseul's own conduct seems to have been not a little equivocal. His friends maintained that his existence as a minister depended on his preventing a war, and he certainly confuted the Comptroller-General's plan of raising supplies for it. Yet, it is now said, that on the very morning of the Duke's disgrace, the King reproached him, and said "Monsieur, je vous avois dit, que je ne voulois pas la guerre;" and the Duke d'Aiguillon's friends have officiously whispered, that if Choiseul was out it would certainly be peace; but did not Lord Chatham, immediately before he was Minister, protest not half a man should be sent to Germany, and yet, were not all our men and all our money sent thither? The Chevalier de Muy is made Secretary-at-War, and it is supposed Monsieur d'Aiguillon is, or will be, the Minister.

Thus Abis.h.a.g[1] has strangled an Administration that had lasted fourteen years. I am sincerely grieved for the d.u.c.h.ess de Choiseul, the most perfect being I know of either s.e.x. I cannot possibly feel for her husband: Corsica is engraved in my memory, as I believe it is on your heart. His cruelties there, I should think, would not cheer his solitude or prison. In the mean time, desolation and confusion reign all over France. They are almost bankrupts, and quite famished. The Parliament of Paris has quitted its functions, and the other tribunals threaten to follow the example. Some people say, that Maupeou,[2] the Chancellor, told the King that they were supported underhand by Choiseul, and must submit if he were removed. The suggestion is specious at least, as the object of their antipathy is the Duke d'Aiguillon. If the latter should think a war a good diversion to their enterprises, I should not be surprised if they went on, especially if a bankruptcy follows famine.

The new Minister and the Chancellor are in general execration. On the latter's lately obtaining the _Cordon Bleu_,[3] this epigram appeared:--

Ce tyran de la France, qui cherche a mettre tout en feu, Merite un cordon, mais ce n'est pas le cordon bleu.

[Footnote 1: Madame du Barri.--WALPOLE.]

[Footnote 2: Maupeou was the Chancellor who had just abolished the Parliaments, the restoration of which in the next reign was perhaps one of the causes which contributed to the Revolution.]

[Footnote 3: The _Cordon Bleu_ was the badge of the Order of St. Louis, established by Louis XIV.; the _cordon not_ blue was the hangman's rope.]

We shall see how Spain likes the fall of the author of the "Family-compact."[1] There is an Empress[2] will not be pleased with it, but it is not the Russian Empress; and much less the Turks, who are as little obliged to that bold man's intrigues as the poor Corsicans.