Letters Of Horace Walpole Volume Ii Part 12

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

P.S.--I have seen the d.u.c.h.ess 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, d.u.c.h.ess 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 Suss.e.x. 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 a.s.sembly 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 gla.s.ses 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 const.i.tution 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 pa.s.sing through his library his niece, who was writing a letter, asked him to mend a pen for her. He did it, and, pa.s.sing 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 const.i.tutional 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 cra.s.so 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 Ma.s.sachusetts; 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 Ma.s.sachusetts, 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 Parna.s.sus, 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 pa.s.sed for a wit; her daughter, who pa.s.sed 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 Parna.s.sus 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 b.u.t.tered m.u.f.fin, made by her Grace the d.u.c.h.ess 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 t.i.tle of "Poetical Amus.e.m.e.nts 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 b.u.t.ter'd m.u.f.fin; A m.u.f.fin 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:--