Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) Part 17

And underneath,

HOTHAMINA.

How shall I tell you the greatest curiosity of the story? The whole plan and execution of the second act was laid and adjusted by my Lady Suffolk herself and Will. Chetwynd, Master of the Mint, Lord Bolingbroke's Oroonoho-Chetwynd; he fourscore, she past seventy-six; and what is more, much worse than I was, for, added to her deafness, she has been confined these three weeks with the gout in her eyes, and was actually then in misery, and had been without sleep. What spirits, and cleverness, and imagination, at that age, and under those afflicting circ.u.mstances! You reconnoitre her old court knowledge, how charmingly she has applied it! Do you wonder I pa.s.s so many hours and evenings with her? Alas! I had like to have lost her this morning!

They had poulticed her feet to draw the gout downwards, and began to succeed yesterday, but to-day it flew up into her head, and she was almost in convulsions with the agony, and screamed dreadfully; proof enough how ill she was, for her patience and good breeding make her for ever sink and conceal what she feels. This evening the gout has been driven back to her foot, and I trust she is out of danger. Her loss would be irreparable to me at Twickenham, where she is by far the most rational and agreeable company I have....

To LADY HERVEY

_A quiet life_

Strawberry Hill, 11 _June_, 1765.

I am almost as much ashamed, Madam, to plead the true cause of my faults towards your ladyship, as to have been guilty of any neglect.

It is scandalous, at my age, to have been carried backwards and forwards to b.a.l.l.s and suppers and parties by very young people, as I was all last week. My resolutions of growing old and staid are admirable: I wake with a sober plan, and intend to pa.s.s the day with my friends--then comes the Duke of Richmond, and hurries me down to Whitehall to dinner--then the d.u.c.h.ess of Grafton sends for me to too in Upper Grosvenor Street--before I can get thither, I am begged to step to Kensington, to give Mrs. Anne Pitt my opinion about a bow-window--after the loo, I am to march back to Whitehall to supper--and after that, am to walk with Miss Pelham on the terrace till two in the morning, because it is moonlight and her chair is not come. All this does not help my morning laziness; and by the time I have breakfasted, fed my birds and my squirrels, and dressed, there is an auction ready. In short, Madam, this was my life last week, and is I think every week, with the addition of forty episodes.--Yet, ridiculous as it is, I send it to your ladyship, because I had rather you should laugh at me than be angry. I cannot offend you in intention, but I fear my sins of omission are equal to a good many Christian's. Pray forgive me. I really will begin to be between forty and fifty by the time I am fourscore: and I truly believe I shall bring my resolutions within compa.s.s; for I have not chalked out any particular business that will take me above forty years more; so that, if I do not get acquainted with the grandchildren of all the present age, I shall lead a quiet sober life yet before I die....

To THE REV. WILLIAM COLE

_Gray's death_

Paris, 12 _Aug_. 1771.

DEAR SIR,

I am excessively shocked at reading in the papers that Mr. Gray is dead! I wish to G.o.d you may be able to tell me it is not true! Yet in this painful uncertainty I must rest some days! None of my acquaintance are in London. I do not know to whom to apply but to you.

Alas! I fear in vain! Too many circ.u.mstances speak it true! the detail is exact;--a second paper arrived by the same post, and does not contradict it--and what is worse, I saw him but four or five days before I came hither; he had been to Kensington for the air, complained of gout flying about him, of sensations of it in his stomach, and indeed, thought him changed, and that he looked ill--still I had not the least idea of his being in danger.--I started up from my chair, when I read the paragraph--a cannon-ball could not have surprised me more! The shock but ceased, to give way to my concern; and my hopes are too ill founded to mitigate it. If n.o.body has the charity to write to me, my anxiety must continue till the end of the month, for I shall set out on my return on the 26th; and unless you receive this time enough for your answer to leave London on the 20th, in the evening, I cannot meet it, till I find it in Arlington Street, whither I beg you to direct it.

If the event is but too true, pray add to this melancholy service, that of telling me any circ.u.mstances you know of his death. Our long, very long friendship, and his genius, must endear to me everything that relates to him. What writings has he left? Who are his executors?

I should earnestly wish, if he has destined anything to the public, to print it at my press--it would do me honour, and would give me an opportunity of expressing what I feel for him. Methinks, as we grow old, our only business here is to adorn the graves of our friends, or to dig our own.

To THE REV. WILLIAM MASON

_The quarrel with Gray_

2 _March_, 1773.

What shall I say? How shall I thank you for the kind manner in which you submit your papers to my correction? But if you are friendly, I must be just. I am so far from being dissatisfied, that I must beg to shorten your pen, and in that respect only would I wish, with regard to myself, to alter your text. I am conscious that in the beginning of the differences between Gray and me, the fault was mine. I was young, too fond of my own diversions; nay, I do not doubt, too much intoxicated by indulgence, vanity, and the insolence of my situation, as a prime minister's son, not to have been inattentive to the feelings of one, I blush to say it, that I knew was obliged to me; of one, whom presumption and folly made me deem not very superior in parts, though I have since felt my infinite inferiority to him.

I treated him insolently. He loved me, and I did not think he did. I reproached him with the difference between us, when he acted from the conviction of knowing that he was my superior. I often disregarded his wish of seeing places, which I would not quit my own amus.e.m.e.nts to visit, though I offered to send him thither without me. Forgive me, if I say that his temper was not conciliating, at the same time that I will confess to you that he acted a most friendly part, had I had the sense to take advantage of it. He freely told me my faults. I declared I did not wish to hear them, nor would correct them. You will not wonder, that with the dignity of his spirit, and the obstinate carelessness of mine, the breach must have widened till we became incompatible.

After this confession, I fear you will think I fall short in the words I wish to have subst.i.tuted for some of yours. If you think them inadequate to the state of the case, as I own they are, preserve this letter, and let some future Sir John Dalrymple produce it to load my memory; but I own I do not desire that any ambiguity should aid his invention to forge an account for me. If you have no objection, I would propose your narrative should run thus ... and contain no more, till a proper time shall come for publishing the truth, as I have stated it to you. While I am living, it is not pleasant to see my private disagreements discussed in magazines and newspapers.

To THE COUNTESS OF UPPER OSSORY

_Fashionable intelligence_

Strawberry Hill, 27 _March_, 1773.

What play makes you laugh very much, and yet is a very wretched comedy? Dr. Goldsmith's _She Stoops to Conquer_. Stoops indeed!--so she does, that is the Muse; she is draggled up to the knees, and has trudged, I believe, from Southwark fair. The whole view of the piece is low humour, and no humour is in it. All the merit is in the situations, which are comic; the heroine has no more modesty than Lady Bridget, and the author's wit is as much _manque_ as the lady's; but some of the characters are well acted, and Woodward speaks a poor prologue, written by Garrick, admirably.

You perceive, Madam, that I have boldly sallied to a play; but the heat of the house and of this sultry March half killed me, yet I limp about as if I was young and pleased. From the play I travelled to Upper Grosvenor Street, to Lady Edgec.u.mbe's, supped at Lady Hertford's. That Maccaroni rake, Lady Powis, who is just come to her estate and spending it, calling in with news of a fire in the Strand at past one in the morning, Lady Hertford, Lady Powis, Mrs. Howe, and I, set out to see it, and were within an inch of seeing the Adelphi buildings burnt to the ground. I was to have gone to the Oratorio next night for Miss Linley's sake, but, being engaged to the French amba.s.sador's ball afterwards, I thought I was not quite Hercules enough for so many labours, and declined the former.

The house was all arbours and bowers, but rather more approaching to Calcutta, where so many English were stewed to death; for as the Queen would not dis-Maid of Honour herself of Miss Vernon till after the Oratorio, the ball-room was not opened till she arrived, and we were penned together in the little hall till we could not breathe. The quadrilles were very pretty: Mrs. Darner, Lady Sefton, Lady Melbourne, and the Princess Czartoriski in blue satin, with blond and _collets montes a la reine Elizabeth_; Lord Robert Spencer, Mr. Fitzpatrick, Lord Carlisle, and I forget whom, in like dresses with red sashes, _derouge_, black hats with diamond loops and a few feathers before, began; then the Henri Quatres and Quatresses, who were Lady Craven, Miss Minching, the two Misses Vernons, Mr. Storer, Mr. Hanger, the Duc de Lauzun, and George Damer, all in white, the men with black hats and white feathers napping behind, danced another quadrille, and then both quadrilles joined; after which Mrs. Hobart, all in gauze and spangles, like a spangle-pudding, a Miss I forget, Lord Edward Bentinck, and a Mr. Corbet, danced a _pas-de-quatre_, in which Mrs. Hobart indeed performed admirably.

The fine Mrs. Matthews in white, trimmed down all the neck and petticoat with scarlet c.o.c.k's feathers, appeared like a new macaw brought from Otaheite; but of all the pretty creatures next to the Carrara (who was not there) was Mrs. Bunbury; so that with her I was in love till one o'clock, and then came home to bed. The d.u.c.h.ess of Queensberry had a round gown of rose-colour, with a man's cape, which, with the stomacher and sleeves, was all trimmed with mother-of-pearl earrings. This Pindaric gown was a sudden thought to surprise the Duke, with whom she had dined in another dress. Did you ever see so good a joke?...

Lord Chesterfield was dead before my last letter that foretold his death set out. Alas! I shall have no more of his lively sayings, Madam, to send you. Oh yes! I have his last: being told of the quarrel in Spitalfields, and even that Mrs. F[itzroy] struck Miss P[oole], he said, I always thought Mrs. F. a _striking_ beauty.'

Thus, having given away all his wit to the last farthing, he has left nothing but some poor witticisms in his will, tying up his heir by forfeitures and jokes from going to Newmarket.

I wrote this letter at Strawberry, and find nothing new in town to add but a cold north-east that has brought back all our fires and furs.

Pray tell me a little of your Ladyship's futurity, and whether you will deign to pa.s.s through London.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM COLE

_Antiquaries and authors_

Arlington Street, 27 _April_, 1773.

... Mr. Gough wants to be introduced to me! Indeed! I would see him;... but he is so dull that he would only be troublesome--and besides, you know I shun authors, and would never have been one myself, if it obliged me to keep such bad company. They are always in earnest, and think their profession serious, and will dwell upon trifles, and reverence learning. I laugh at all these things, and write only to laugh at them, and divert myself. None of us are authors of any consequence; and it is the most ridiculous of all vanities to be vain of being _mediocre_. A page in a great author humbles me to the dust; and the conversation of those that are not superior to myself, reminds me of what will be thought of myself. I blush to flatter them, or to be flattered by them, and should dread letters being published some time or other, in which they would relate our interviews, and we should appear like those puny conceited witlings in Shenstone's and Hughes's _Correspondence_, who give themselves airs from being in possession of the soil of Parna.s.sus for the time being; as peers are proud, because they enjoy the estates of great men who went before them. Mr. Gough is very welcome to see Strawberry Hill; or I would help him to any sc.r.a.ps in my possession, that would a.s.sist his publications; though he is one of those industrious who are only re-burying the dead--but I cannot be acquainted with him. It is contrary to my system and my humour; and besides, I know nothing of barrows, and Danish intrenchments, and Saxon barbarisms, and Phoenician characters--in short, I know nothing of those ages that knew nothing--how then should I be of use to modern litterati? All the Scotch metaphysicians have sent me their works. I did not read one of them, because I do not understand what is not understood by those that write about it; and I did not get acquainted with one of the writers.

I should like to be acquainted with Mr. Anstey, even though he wrote Lord Buckhorse, or with the author of the _Heroic Epistle_--I have no thirst to know the rest of my contemporaries, from the absurd bombast of Dr. Johnson down to the silly Dr. Goldsmith; though the latter changeling has had bright gleams of parts, and though the former had sense, till he changed it for words, and sold it for a pension. Don't think me scornful. Recollect that I have seen Pope, and lived with Gray. Adieu!

TO THE MISS BERRYS

_Their first meeting_

Tuesday night, 8 o'clock, 17 _Sept._ 1793.

My beloved spouses,

Whom I love better than Solomon loved his one spouse--or his one thousand. I lament that the summer is over; not because of its iniquity, but because you two made it so delightful to me, that six weeks of gout could not sour it. Pray take care of yourselves--not for your own sakes, but for mine; for, as I have just had my quota of gout, I may, possibly, expect to see another summer; and, as you allow that I do know my own, and when I wish for anything and have it, am entirely satisfied, you may depend upon it that I shall be as happy with a third summer, if I reach it, as I have been with the two last.

Consider, that I have been threescore years and ten looking for a society that I perfectly like; and at last there dropped out of the clouds into Lady Herries's room two young gentlewomen, who I so little thought were sent thither on purpose for me, that when I was told they were the charming Miss Berrys, I would not even go to the side of the chamber where they sat. But, as Fortune never throws anything at one's head without hitting one, I soon found out that the charming Berrys were precisely _ce qu'il me fallait_; and that though young enough to be my great-grand-daughters, lovely enough to turn the heads of all our youths, and sensible enough, if said youths have any brains, to set all their heads to rights again. Yes, sweet damsels, I have found that you can bear to pa.s.s half your time with an antediluvian, without discovering any _ennui_ or disgust; though his greatest merit towards you is, that he is not one of those old fools who fancy they are in love in their dotage. I have no such vagary; though I am not sorry that some folks think I am so absurd, since it frets their selfishness.