Letters Of Horace Walpole Volume Ii Part 21

I have again seen our poor friend in Clarges Street [Mrs. Vesey]: her faculties decay rapidly, and of course she suffers less. She has not an acquaintance in town; and yet told me the town was very full, and that she had had a good deal of company. Her health is re-established, and we must now be content that her mind is not restless. My pity now feels most for Mrs. Hanc.o.c.k, whose patience is inexhaustible, though not insensible.

Mrs. Piozzi, I hear, has two volumes of Dr. Johnson's Letters ready for publication. Bruce is printing his travels, which I suppose will prove that his narratives were fabulous, as he will scarce repeat them by the press. These, and two more volumes of Mr. Gibbon's "History," are all the literary news I know. France seems sunk indeed in all respects. What stuff are their theatrical goods, their "Richards," "Ninas," and "Tarares"! But when their "Figaro"[1] could run threescore nights, how despicable must their taste be grown! I rejoice that their political intrigues are not more creditable. I do not dislike the French from the vulgar antipathy between neighbouring nations, but for their insolent and unfounded airs of superiority. In arms, we have almost always outshone them: and till they have excelled Newton, and come near to Shakspeare, pre-eminence in genius must remain with us. I think they are most ent.i.tled to triumph over the Italians; as, with the most meagre and inharmonious of all languages, the French have made more of that poverty in tragedy and eloquence, than the Italians have done with the language the most capable of both. But I did not mean to send you a dissertation.

I hope it will not be long before you remove to Hampton.--Yet why should I wish that? You will only be geographically nearer to London till February. Cannot you, now and then, sleep at the Adelphi on a visit to poor Vesey and your friends, and let one know if you do?

[Footnote 1: "Le Mariage de Figaro" was a play by a man who a.s.sumed the name of Beaumarchais (as Poquelin had taken the name of Moliere and Arouet that of Voltaire); and the histories of both the author and the play are curious. The author's real name was Caron, and he had been bred a watchmaker. But he was ambitious; he gave up his trade, and bought a place about the Court, which was among those which conferred gentility, and which enabled him afterwards on one occasion to boast that he could establish a better claim to the rank of n.o.ble than most of that body, since he could produce a stamped receipt for it. He married two rich widows. He next obtained the place of music-master on the harp to the daughters of Louis XV., and conducted some of their concerts. He became involved in a law-suit, which he conducted in person against some of the most renowned advocates of the day, and gained great applause for the talent he had exhibited in his pleadings. He crossed over to England, where he made acquaintance with Wilkes and the agents of some of the North American colonies, and became a volunteer agent for them himself at the beginning of the American war, expending, according to his own statement, 150,000 francs in the purchase of arms and stores, which he sent out, when the President of Congress contented himself with thanking him for his liberality, but refused to pay his bill. He resolved to try his skill as a dramatist. His earlier plays were not particularly successful, but in 1781 he produced "The Marriage of Figaro," a sort of sequel to one of its predecessors, "The Barber of Seville." During the progress of its composition he had shown some of the scenes to his critical friends, who had p.r.o.nounced it witty, and prophesied its success. But it had also become known that it contained sarcasms on some of the exclusive privileges of the n.o.bles, and the officer who had charge of such matters in consequence refused to license it for performance, as a dangerous satire on the inst.i.tutions of the country.

He had by this time made friends enough to form a party to remonstrate against the hardship of the Censor's decision; till the King determined to judge for himself, and caused Mme. Campau to read it to himself and the Queen, when he fully agreed with the Censor, and expressed a positive determination not to permit its performance. Unluckily he was never firm in his resolutions; and Beaumarchais having secured the patronage of Louis's brother, the Comte d'Artois, and Mme. de Polignac, felt confident of carrying his point at last. His royal and n.o.ble patrons arranged parties for private readings of the play. He then declared, untruly, that he had altered all the pa.s.sages which had been deemed offensive, and Louis was weak enough to believe him without further examination, and to sanction a private performance of it at the country house of the Comte de Vandreuel. After this it was impossible to exclude it from the theatre in Paris; and in April, 1784, it was acted before an audience whom the long-continued contest had brought in unprecedented numbers to hear it. If it had not been for the opposition which had been made to it, it probably would never have attracted any particular attention; for, though it was lively, and what managers call a fair "acting play," it had no remarkable merit as a composition, and depended for its attraction more on some of its surprises and discoveries than on its wit. But its performance and the reception it met with were regarded by a large political party as a triumph over the Ministry; and French historical writers, to whatever party they belong, agree in declaring that it had given a death-blow to many of the oldest inst.i.tutions of the country, and that Beaumarchais proved at once the herald and the pioneer of the approaching Revolution. (See the Editor's "Life of Marie Antoinette," c. 19.)]

_GENTLEMEN WRITERS--HIS OWN REASONS FOR WRITING WHEN YOUNG--VOLTAIRE--"EVELINA"--MISS SEWARD--HAYLEY._

TO MISS HANNAH MORE.

Strawberry Hill, _July_ 12, 1788.

Won't you repent having opened the correspondence, my dear Madam, when you find my letters come so thick upon you? In this instance, however, I am only to blame in part, for being too ready to take advice, for the sole reason for which advice ever is taken,--because it fell in with my inclination.

You said in your last that you feared you took up time of mine to the prejudice of the public; implying, I imagine, that I might employ it in composing. Waving both your compliment and my own vanity, I will speak very seriously to you on that subject, and with exact truth. My simple writings have had better fortune than they had any reason to expect; and I fairly believe, in a great degree, because gentlemen-writers, who do not write for interest, are treated with some civility if they do not write absolute nonsense. I think so, because I have not unfrequently known much better works than mine much more neglected, if the name, fortune, and situation of the authors were below mine. I wrote early from youth, spirits, and vanity; and from both the last when the first no longer existed. I now shudder when I reflect on my own boldness; and with mortification, when I compare my own writings with those of any great authors. This is so true, that I question whether it would be possible for me to summon up courage to publish anything I have written, if I could recall time past, and should yet think as I think at present.

So much for what is over and out of my power. As to writing now, I have totally forsworn the profession, for two solid reasons. One I have already told you; and it is, that I know my own writings are trifling and of no depth. The other is, that, light and futile as they were, I am sensible they are better than I could compose now. I am aware of the decay of the middling parts I had, and others may be still more sensible of it. How do I know but I am superannuated? n.o.body will be so coa.r.s.e as to tell me so; but if I published dotage, all the world would tell me so. And who but runs that risk who is an author after seventy? What happened to the greatest author of this age, and who certainly retained a very considerable portion of his abilities for ten years after my age?[1] Voltaire, at eighty-four, I think, went to Paris to receive the incense, in person, of his countrymen, and to be witness of their admiration of a tragedy he had written, at that Methusalem age. Incense he did receive till it choked him; and, at the exhibition of his play, he was actually crowned with laurel in the box where he sat. But what became of his poor play? It died as soon as he did--was buried with him; and no mortal, I dare to say, has ever read a line of it since, it was so bad.

[Footnote 1: Voltaire had for several years been in disgrace at Court, and had been living in Switzerland; but in 1778 he returned to Paris to superintend the performance of a new tragedy, "Irene." He was, however, greatly mortified at the refusal of Marie Antoinette to allow him to be presented to her, and was but partly comforted by the enthusiasm of the audience at the theatre, who crowned him on the stage after the performance. Mme. du Deffand, who, in a letter to Walpole a few days before, had said that if the tragedy did not succeed it would kill him, says in a subsequent letter that its success had been very moderate--that the enthusiasm of the audience had been for Voltaire himself; and at all events her prophecy was fulfilled, for he died a few weeks afterwards.]

As I am neither by a thousandth part so great, nor a quarter so little, I will herewith send you a fragment that an accidental _rencontre_ set me upon writing, and which I find so flat, that I would not finish it.

Don't believe that I am either begging praise by the stale artifice of hoping to be contradicted; or that I think there is any occasion to make you discover my caducity. No; but the fragment contains a curiosity--English verses written by a French Prince[1] of the Blood, and which at first I had a mind to add to my "Royal and n.o.ble Authors;"

but as he was not a royal author of ours, and as I could not please myself with an account of him, I shall revert to my old resolution of not exposing my pen's grey hairs.

[Footnote 1: He was the Duc d'Orleans, who was taken prisoner by Henry V. at Agincourt, and was detained in England for twenty-five years. The verses are published in "Walpole's Works," i. 564.]

Of one pa.s.sage I must take notice; it is a little indirect sneer at our crowd of auth.o.r.esses. My choosing to send this to _you_, is a proof that I think you an author, that is, a cla.s.sic. But, in truth, I am nauseated by the Madams Piozzi, &c., and the host of novel-writers in petticoats, who think they imitate what is inimitable, "Evelina" and "Cecilia."[1] Your candour, I know, will not agree with me, when I tell you I am not at all charmed with Miss Seward[2] and Mr. Hayley[3] piping to one another: but _you_ I exhort, and would encourage to write; and flatter myself you will never be royally gagged and promoted to fold muslins, as has been lately wittily said on Miss Burney, in the List of five hundred living authors. _Your_ writings promote virtues; and their increasing editions prove their worth and utility. If you question my sincerity, can you doubt my admiring you, when you have gratified _my_ self-love so amply in your "Bas Bleu"? Still, as much as I love your writings, I respect yet more your heart and your goodness. You are so good that I believe you would go to heaven, even though there were no Sunday, and only six _working_ days in the week. Adieu, my best Madam!

[Footnote 1: "Evelina" and "Cecilia" are novels by Miss Burney, afterwards Mme. d'Arblay. The former was extravagantly praised by Johnson and the Literary Club, and is probably a favourable specimen of the style of the conversation of the day.]

[Footnote 2: Miss Seward was the auth.o.r.ess of that most ingenious riddle on the letter _H_, and also of some volumes of poetry.]

[Footnote 3: Mr. Hayley was the author of several works in prose and verse; in the latter, of a poem called "The Triumphs of Temper," and ent.i.tled to the name, according to Byron, since "at least they triumphed over his" ("English Bards and Scotch Reviewers").]

_DIVISIONS IN THE ROYAL FAMILY--THE REGENCY--THE IRISH PARLIAMENT._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

BERKELEY SQUARE, _Feb._ 12, 1789.

I now do believe that the King is coming to _him_self: not in the language of the courtiers, to his senses--but from their proof, viz., that he is returned to his _what! what! what!_ which he used to prefix to every sentence, and which is coming to his nonsense. I am corroborated in this opinion by his having said much more sensible things in his lunacy than he did when he was reckoned sane, which I do not believe he has been for some years.

Well! now, how will this new change of scene operate? I fancy if any one could win access to him, who would tell him the truth, he would be as little pleased with his Queen, and his or her Pitt, as they will take care he shall be with his sons. Would he admire the degradation of his family in the person of all the Princes? or with the tripart.i.te division of Royalty between the Queen, the Prince, and Mr. Pitt, which I call a _Trinity in disunity_? Will he be charmed with the Queen's admission to power, which he never imparted to her? Will he like the discovery of his vast private h.o.a.rd? Will he be quite satisfied with the codicil to his Will,[1] which she surrept.i.tiously obtained from him in his frenzy _in the first agony of her grief_? How will he digest that discovery of his treasure, which will not diffuse great compa.s.sion when he shall next ask a payment of his pretended debts? Before his madness he was indisposed towards Pitt; will he be better pleased with him for his new dictatorial presumption?

[Footnote 1: "_His will._" This refers to a scandal propagated by some of the opposition newspapers, for which there was not the slightest foundation.]

Turn to the next page--to Ireland. They have chosen for themselves, it is believed, a Regent without restrictions,[1] in scorn of the Parliament of England, and in order further to a.s.sert their independence. Will they recede? especially when their courtiers have flown in the face of our domineering Minister? I do not think they will.

They may receive the King again on his recovery; but they have united interests with the Prince, and act in league with him, that he may pledge himself to them more deeply in future at least; they will never again acknowledge any superiority in our Parliament, but rather act in contradistinction.

[Footnote 1: "_Regent without restrictions._" The King, in the autumn of 1788, having fallen into a state of temporary derangement, Pitt proposed that the Parliament should appoint the Prince of Wales Regent, with some temporary limitations in the exercise of the power. Fox and his followers contended that the Prince, being of full age, was as absolutely ent.i.tled to the Regency as his right, as he would have been to the Crown in the event of his father's death; and Grattan, who had a paramount influence over the Irish Parliament, adopting Fox's view, carried an address to the Prince, entreating him to take upon himself the Regency as his right--a view which, of course, was incompatible with any power of limiting his authority. Fortunately, before this address could be acted upon, the King recovered. The matter unfortunately caused great divisions in the Royal Family, to which Walpole alludes in the latter part of the letter; the Queen considering (not without grounds) that the Prince had shown unfilial eagerness to grasp at power; and indeed he had already made it known that he had intended to dismiss Pitt and to appoint Fox Prime Minister.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hand-written Letter]

_Feb. 22nd._

The person who was to have brought you this was prevented leaving town, and therefore I did not finish my letter; but I believe I shall have another opportunity of sending, and therefore I will make it ready.

Much has happened this last week. The Prince is Regent of Ireland without limitations--a great point for his character; for Europe will now see that it was a faction which fettered him here, and not his unpopularity, for then would not he have been as much distasted in Ireland? Indeed, their own Attorney-General made way for him by opposing on the most injudicious of all pleas, that it would be necessary before he could be Regent there, to set the _Great Seal of England_ to the act!

How could the fool imagine, that when that phantom had been invented here, it would not be equally easy for the Irish to invent a parallel phantom of their own? But though this compliment is most grateful to the Prince at present, he will probably find hereafter that he has in effect lost Ireland, who meant more to emanc.i.p.ate themselves from this country than to compliment the Prince or contradict the English ministerial faction.

What will be the consequence of that rapid turn in Ireland, even immediately, who can tell? for the King is called recovered, and the English Regency is suspended, with fresh and grievous insults to the Prince, who with the Duke of York are violently hindered by the Queen from even seeing their father, though she and their sisters play at cards with him in an evening; and that the Chancellor was with him for an hour and three quarters on the 19th.

Under colour of what new phantom her Majesty, the Chancellor,[1] and Pitt will a.s.sume the Government, we shall know in two or three days; for I do not suppose they will produce the King instantly, at the risk of oversetting his head again, though they seem half as mad as he, and capable of any violent act to maintain themselves. And so much the better: I do not wish them temperate; and it looks as if people never were so in minorities and incapacities of their kings. The Prince set out as indiscreetly as Pitt.

[Footnote 1: The Chancellor was Lord Thurlow, an able but unprincipled man. Johnson expressed a high opinion of him as an arguer "who brought his mind to bear upon yours." But Fox declared his very face "proved him an impostor, since no man could be as wise as he looked."]

Of the event I am very glad; it saves the Prince and the Opposition from the rashness of changing the Administration on so precarious and shackled a tenure, and it saves them too from the expense of re-elections. If the King recovers, they are but where they were, but with the advantage of having the Prince and Duke of York rooted in aversion to the Ministers, and most unlikely to be governed by the Queen. If the King relapses, the Opposition stock will rise; though in the mean time I do not doubt but the nation will grow drunk with the loyalty of rejoicing, for kings grow popular by whatever way they lose their heads. Still, whatever eccentricity he attempts, it will be imputed to his deranged understanding. And, however even Lord Hawkesbury[1] may meditate the darkest mischiefs under the new fund of pity and loyalty, he will _not_ be for extending the prerogative, which must devolve (on any accident to the King) on the Prince, Duke of York, or some of the Princes, who will all be linked in a common cause with their brothers, who have been so grossly affronted; and Prince William, the third, particularly so by the last cause of hindering his peerage while abroad. The King's recovery before the Regency Act was pa.s.sed will be another great advantage to the Prince; his hands would have been so shackled, that he could not have found places for half the expectants, who will now impute their disappointments to the King's amendment, and not to the Prince.

[Footnote 1: Lord Hawkesbury was afterwards promoted to the Earldom of Liverpool, and was the father of the sagacious, prudent, but resolute minister under whose administration the French Revolutionary War was brought to a conclusion by the final overthrow of Napoleon.]

_Monday, 24th._

The King has seen the Prince [of Wales], and received him kindly, but the Queen was present. Iron Pluto (as Burke called the Chancellor) wept again when with the King; but what is much more remarkable, his Majesty has not asked for Pitt, and did abuse him constantly during his frenzy.

The Chancellor certainly did not put him in mind of Pitt, whom he detests; so there is a pretty portion of hatred to be quaffed amongst them! and swallowed, if they can; yet _aurum potabile_ will make it sit on their stomachs.

_"THE ARABIAN NIGHTS"--THE AENEID--BOCCALINI--ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE._

TO MISS BERRY.[1]

[Footnote 1: The lady to whom this letter is addressed was the elder of two sisters who in 1787 came to reside with their father in Walpole's neighbourhood. Both the sisters, according to his description of them, were very accomplished and sufficiently good-looking. He gradually became so enthusiastic in his regard for her, that he proposed to marry her, old as he was, in order that he might have an excuse for leaving her all his fortune; and he wrote the "Reminiscences of the Courts of George I. and II.," which are among his published works, for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the two sisters.]

STRAWBERRY HILL, _June_ 30, 1789.

Were there any such thing as sympathy at the distance of two hundred miles, you would have been in a mightier panic than I was; for, on Sat.u.r.day se'nnight, going to open the gla.s.s case in the Tribune, my foot caught in the carpet, and I fell with my whole weight (_si_ weight _y a_) against the corner of the marble altar, on my side, and bruised the muscles so badly, that for two days I could not move without screaming.

I am convinced I should have broken a rib, but that I fell on the cavity whence two of my ribs were removed, that are gone to Yorkshire. I am much better both of my bruise and of my lameness, and shall be ready to dance at my own wedding when my wives return. And now to answer your letter.

If you grow tired of the "Arabian Nights," you have no more taste than Bishop Atterbury,[1] who huffed Pope for sending him them (or the "Persian Tales"), and fancied he liked Virgil better, who had no more imagination than Dr. Akenside. Read "Sinbad the Sailor's Voyages," and you will be sick of Aeneas's. What woful invention were the nasty poultry that dunged on his dinner, and ships on fire turned into Nereids! A barn metamorphosed into a cascade in a pantomime is full as sublime an effort of genius. I do not know whether the "Arabian Nights"

are of Oriental origin or not: I should think not, because I never saw any other Oriental composition that was not bombast without genius, and figurative without nature; like an Indian screen, where you see little men on the foreground, and larger men hunting tigers above in the air, which they take for perspective. I do not think the Sultaness's narratives very natural or very probable, but there is a wildness in them that captivates. However, if you could wade through two octavos of Dame Piozzi's _though's_ and _so's_ and _I trow's_, and cannot listen to seven volumes of Scheherezade's narrations, I will sue for a divorce _in foro Parna.s.si_, and Boccalini shall be my proctor. The cause will be a counterpart to the sentence of the Lacedaemonian, who was condemned for breach of the peace, by saying in three words what he might have said in two.

[Footnote 1: Atterbury (Pope's "mitred Rochester") was Bishop of Rochester in the reigns of Anne and George I. He was so violent in his Jacobitism, that on the death of Queen Anne he offered to head a procession to proclaim James III. as king at Charing Cross. Afterwards Sir R. Walpole had evidence of his maintaining a treasonable correspondence with the Court of St. Germains, sufficient to have ensured his conviction, but, being always of a merciful disposition, and naturally unwilling to bring a Bishop to the block, he contented himself with pa.s.sing a Bill of Pains and Penalties to deprive him of his bishopric and banish him for life.]

You are not the first Eurydice[1] that has sent her husband to the devil, as you have kindly proposed to me; but I will not undertake the jaunt, for if old Nicholas Pluto should enjoin me not to look back to you, I should certainly forget the prohibition like my predecessor.

Besides, I am a little too close to take a voyage twice which I am so soon to repeat; and should be laughed at by the good folks on the other side of the water, if I proposed coming back for a twinkling only. No; I choose as long as I can

Still with my fav'rite Berrys to remain.