The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume II Part 12

(221) Edward Wortley Montague, whose singular adventures and eccentricities are so well known. In 1747, he was chosen member for the county of Huntingdon; but in his senatorial capacity he did not distinguish himself. His expenses greatly exceeding his income, towards the end of this year he quitted the kingdom and went to Paris.-E.

(222) Daughter of Scroop, Duke of Bridgewater, by the Lady Rachel Russel, sister of the Duke of Bedford. Lady Diana Egerton was afterwards married to Lord Baltimore.

94 Letter 36 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, March 13, 1751.

You will be expecting the conclusion of Mr. Murray's history, but as he is too great a hero to submit, and not hero enough to terminate his prison in a more summary, or more English way, you must have patience, as we shall have, till the end of the session. His relations, who had leave to visit him, are excluded again: rougher methods with him are not the style of the age: in the mean time he is quite forgot. General Anstruther is now the object in fashion, or made so by a Sir Harry Erskine, a very fashionable figure in the world of politics, who has just come into Parliament, and has been laying a foundation for the next reign by attacking the Mutiny-bill, and occasionally General Anstruther, who treated him hardly ten years ago in Minorca. Anstruther has mutually persecuted and been persecuted by the Scotch ever since Porteous's affair, when, of all that nation, he alone voted for demolishing part of Edinburgh. This affair would be a trifle, if it had not opened the long-smothered rivalship between Fox and Pitt: for these ten days they have been civilly at war together; and Mr. Pelham is bruised between both. However, this impetuosity of Pitt has almost overset the total engrossment that the Duke of Newcastle had made of all power, and if they do not, as it is suspected, league with the Prince, you will not so soon hear of the fall of the Bedfords, as I had made you expect. With this quant.i.ty of factions ind infinite quant.i.ty of speakers, we have had a most fatiguing session, and seldom rise before nine or ten at night.

There have been two events, not political, equal to any absurdities or follies of former years. My Lady Vane(223) has literally published the memoirs of her own life, Only suppressing part of her lovers, no part of the success of the others with her: a degree of profligacy not to be accounted for; she does not want money, none of her lovers will raise her credit; and the number, all she had to brag of, concealed! The other is a play that has been acted by people of some fashion at Drury Lane, hired on purpose. They really acted so well that it is astonishing they should not have had sense enough not to act at all. You would know none of their names, should I tell you; but the chief were a family of Delavals, the eldest of which was married by one Foote, a player, to Lady Na.s.sau Poulett,(224) who had kept the latter. The rage was so great to see this performance that the House of Commons literally adjourned at three o'clock on purpose: the footman's gallery was strung with blue ribands. What a wise people! what an august Senate! yet my Lord Granville once told the Prince, I forget on occasion of what folly, "Sir, indeed your Royal Highness is in the wrong to act thus; the English are a grave nation."

The King has been much out of order, but he is quite well again, and they say, not above sixty-seven! Adieu!

(223) Anne, second daughter of Mr. Hawes, the wife of William, Lord Viscount Vane. The history of her intrigues, communicated by herself, had just been published in Smollett's Adventures of Peregrine Pickle. See vol. i. Gray, in a letter to Walpole, of the 3d of March, writes, "Has that miracle of tenderness and sensibility (as she calls it), given you any amus.e.m.e.nt?

Peregrine, whom she uses as a vehicle, is very poor indeed, with a few exceptions."-E.

(224) Isabella, youngest daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Tufton, Earl of Thanet, and widow of Lord Na.s.sau Poulett, youngest brother of the Duke of Bolton. She was mad.

95 Letter 37 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, March 21, 1751.

What, another letter, -when I wrote to you but last week!- -Yes--and with an event too big to be kept for a regular interval. You will imagine from the conclusion of my last letter that our King is dead--or, before you receive this, you will probably have heard by flying couriers that it is only our King that was to be. In short, the Prince died last night between nine and ten. If I don't tell you ample details, it is because you must content yourself with hearing nothing but what I know true. He had had a pleurisy, and was recovered. Last Tuesday was se'nnight he went to attend the King's pa.s.sing some bills in the House of Lords; from thence to Carlton House, very hot, where he unrobed, put on a light unaired frock and waistcoat, went to Kew, walked in a bitter day, came home tired, and lay down for three hours, upon a couch in a very cold room at Carlton House, that opens into the garden. Lord Egmont told him how dangerous it was, but the Prince did not mind him. My father once said to this King, when he was ill and royally untractable, "Sir, do you know what your father died of? of thinking he could not die." In short, the Prince relapsed that night, has had three physicians ever since, and has never been supposed out of danger till yesterday: a thrush had appeared, and for the two or three last evenings he had dangerous suppressions of breath. However, his family thought him so well yesterday, that there were cards in his outward room. Between nine and ten he was seized with a violent fit of coughing. Wilmot, and Hawkins the surgeon, were present: the former said, ,Sir, have you brought up all the phlegm? I hope this will be over in a quarter of an hour, and that your Royal Highness will have a good night." Hawkins had occasion to go out of the room, and said, "Here is something I don't like."

The cough continued; the prince laid his hand upon his stomach, and said, "Je sens la mort." The page who held him up, felt him shiver, and cried out, The Prince is going!" The Princess was at the feet of the bed; she catched up a candle and ran to him, but before she got to the head of the bed, he was dead.(225)

Lord North was immediately sent to the King, who was looking over a table, where Princess Emily, the d.u.c.h.ess of Dorset, and Duke of Grafton were playing. He was extremely surprised, and said, "Why, they told me he was better!" He bid Lord North tell the Princess, he would do every thing she could desire; and has this morning sent her a very kind message in writing. He is extremely shocked--but no pity is too much for the Princess; she has eight children, and is seven months gone with another.

She bears her affliction with great courage and sense. They asked her if the body was to be opened; she replied, what the King pleased.

This is all I know yet; you shall have fresh and fresh intelligence--for reflections on minorities, Regencies, Jacobitism, Oppositions, factions, I need not help you to them.

You will make as many as any body, but those who reflect on their own disappointments. The creditors are no inconsiderable part of the moralists. They talk of fourteen hundred thousand pounds on post-obits. This I am sure I don't vouch; I Only know that I never am concerned to see the tables of the money-changers overturned and cast out of the temple.(226)

I much fear, that by another post I shall be forced to tell you news that will have much worse effects for my own family, My Lord Orford has got such another violent boil as he had two years ago--and a thrush has appeared too along with it. We are in the utmost apprehensions about him, the more, because there is no possibility of giving him any about himself. He has not only taken an invincible aversion to physicians, but to the bark, and we have no hopes from any thing else. It will be a fatal event for me, for your brother, and for his own son.

Princess Emily,(227) Mr. Pelham(228) and my Lady Orford, are not among the most frightened.

Your brother, who dines here with Mr. Chute and Gray,(229) has just brought me your letter of March 12th. The libel you ask about was called "Const.i.tutional Queries:" have not you received mine of February 9th? there was some account of our present history. Adieu! I have not time to write any longer to you; but you may well expect our correspondence will thicken.

(225) Frederick, Prince of Wales, was a man in no way estimable, though his understanding and disposition were cried up by those who were in opposition to his father's government.

Walpole says of him, "His best quality was generosity; his worst, insincerity and indifference to truth, which appeared so early, that Earl Stanhope wrote to Lord Sunderland from Hanover, "He has his father's head, and his mother's heart."

His death was undoubtedly a deliverance for those who, had he lived, would have become his subjects.-D.

(226) Frederick, Prince of Wales's debts were never paid.-D.

(227) Princess Emily had the reversion of New-park.

(228) The auditor of the exchequer, was in the gift of Mr.

Pelham, as chancellor of the exchequer, and first lord of the treasury.

(229) Thomas Gray, author of the Elegy in a Churchyard, and other poems.

97 Letter 38 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, April 1, 1751.

How shall I begin a letter that will-that must give you as much pain as I feel myself? I must interrupt the story of the Prince's death, to tell you of two more, much more important, G.o.d knows! to you and me! One I had prepared you for-but how will you be shocked to hear that our poor Mr. Whithed is dead(230) as well as my brother! Whithed had had a bad cough for two months: he was going out of town to the Minchester a.s.sizes; I persuaded and sent him home from hence one morning to be blooded. However, he went, in extreme bad weather. His youngest brother, the clergyman, who is the greatest brute in the world, except the elder brother, the layman, dragged him out every morning to hunt, as eagerly as if it had been to hunt heretics. One day they were overturned in a water, and then the parson made him ride forty miles: in short, he arrived it the Vine half dead, and soon grew delirious. Poor Mr. Chute was sent for to him last Wednesday, and sent back for two more physicians, but in vain; he expired on Friday night! Mr. Chute is come back half distracted, and scarce to be known again.

You may easily believe that my own distress does not prevent my doing all in my power to alleviate his. Whithed, that best of hearts, had forgiven all his elder brother's beastliness, and has left him the Norton estate, the better half; the rest to the clergyman, with an annuity of one hundred and twenty pounds a year to his Florentine mistress, and six hundred pounds to their child. He has left Mr. Chute one thousand pounds, which, if forty times the sum, would not comfort him, and, little as it is, does not in the least affect or alter his concern.

Indeed, he not only loses an intimate friend, but in a manner an only child; he had formed him to be one of the prettiest gentlemen in England, and had brought about a match for him, that was soon to be concluded with a Miss Nicholl, an immense fortune; and I am persuaded had fixed his heart on making him his own heir, if he himself outlived his brother. With such a fortune, and with such expectations, how hard to die!--or, perhaps, how lucky, before he had tasted misfortune and mortification.

I must now mention my own misfortune, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings, the physicians and all the family of painful death,(231) (to alter Gray's phrase,) were persuaded and persuaded me, that the bark, which took great place, would save my brother's life --but he relapsed at three o'clock on Thursday, and died last night. He ordered to be drawn and executed his will with the greatest tranquillity and satisfaction on Sat.u.r.day morning. His spoils are prodigious-not to his own family! indeed I think his son the most ruined young man in England. My loss, I fear, may be considerable, which is not the only motive of my concern, though, as you know, I had much to forgive, before I could regret: but indeed I do regret. It is no small addition to my concern, to fear or foresee that Houghton and all the remains of my father's glory will be pulled to pieces! The widow-Countess immediately marries--not Richcourt, but Shirley, and triumphs in advancing her son's ruin by enjoying her own estate, and tearing away great part of his.

Now I shall divert your private grief by talking to you of what is called the public. The King and Princess are grown as fond as it they had never been of different parties, or rather as people who always had been of different. She discountenances all opposition, and he all ambition. Prince George, who, with his two eldest brothers, is to be lodged at St. James's, is speedily to be created Prince of Wales. Ayscough, his tutor, is to be removed, with her entire inclination as well as with every body's approbation. They talk of a Regency to be established (in case of a minority) by authority of Parliament, even this session, with the Princess at the head of it. She and Dr. lee, the only one she consults of the late cabal, very sensibly burned the late Prince's papers the moment he was dead. lord Egmont, by seven o'clock the next morning, summoned (not very decently) the faction to his house: all was whisper!

at least he hinted something of taking the Princess and her children under their protection, and something of the necessity of harmony. No answer was made to the former proposal.

Somebody said, it was very likely indeed they should agree now, when the Prince could never bring it about: and so every body went away to take care of himself. The imposthumation is supposed to have proceeded, not from his fall last year, but from a blow with a tennis-ball some years ago. The grief for the dead brother is affectedly great; the aversion to the living one as affectedly displayed. They cried about an elegy,(232) and added, "Oh, that it were but his brother!" On 'Change they said, "Oh, that it were but the butcher!(233)"

The Houses sit, but no business will be done till after the holidays. AnStruther's affair will go on, but not with MUCH spirit. One wants to see faces about again! d.i.c.k lyttelton, one of the patriot officers, had collected depositions on oath against the Duke for his behaviour in Scotland, but I suppose he will now throw his papers into Ham/let's grave?

Prince George, who has a most amiable countenance, behaved excessively well on his father's death. When they told him of it, he turned pale, and laid his hand on his breast. Ayscough said, "I am afraid, Sir, you are not well!"-he replied, "I feel something here, just as I did when I saw the two workmen fall from the scaffold at Kew." Prince Edward is a very plain boy, with strange loose eyes, but was much the favourite. He is a sayer of things! Two men were heard lamenting the death in Leicester-fields: one said, "He has left a great many small children!"-"Ay," replied the other, "and what is worse, they belong to our parish!" But the most extraordinary reflections on his death were set forth in a sermon at Mayfair chapel. "He had no great parts, (pray mind, this was the parson said so, not I,) but he had great virtues; indeed, they degenerated into vices - he was very generous, but I hear his generosity has ruined a great many people: and then his condescension was such, that he kept very bad company."

Adieu! my dear child; I have tried, you see, to blend so much public history with our private griefs, as may help to interrupt your too great attention to the calamities in the former part of my letter. You will, with the properest good-nature in the world, break the news to the poor girl, whom I pity, though I never saw. Miss Nicholl is, I am told, extremely to be pitied too; but so is every body that knew Whithed! Bear it yourself as well as you can!

(230) Francis Thistlethwaite, who took the name of Whithed for his uncle's estate and, as heir to him, recovered Mr. Norton's estate, which he had left to the Parliament for the use of the poor, etc,; but the will was set aside for insanity. [See ant'e.)

(231) Vide Gray's Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College.

(232) Walpole, in his Memoires, vol. i. p. 504, says, "The following which is the elegy alluded to, was probably the effusion of some Jacobite royalist. That faction could not, forgive the Duke of c.u.mberland his excesses or successes in Scotland; and not content with branding the parliamentary government of the country as usurpation, indulged in frequent unfailing and scurrilous personalities on every branch of the reigning family.

"Here lies Fred, Who was alive and is dead: Had it been his father, I had much rather: Had it been his brother, Still better than another; Had it been his sister, No one would have missed her; Had it been the whole generation, Still better for the nation; But since 'tis only Fred, Who was alive and is dead- There is no more to be said."-E.

(233) The Duke of c.u.mberland, by his friends styled the Hero of culloden, by his opponents nicknamed Billy the Butcher.-E.

99 Letter 39 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, April 22, 1751.

I could not help, my dear child, being struck with the conclusion of your letter of the 2d of this month, which I have just received; it mentions the gracious a.s.surances you had received from the dead Prince--indeed, I hope you will not want them. The person(234) who conveyed them was so ridiculous as to tell your brother that himself was the most disappointed of all men, he and the Prince having settled his first ministry in such a manner that nothing could have defeated the plan.(235) An admirable scheme for power in England, founded only on two persons! Some people say he was to be a duke and secretary of state. I would have him drawn like Edward V. with the coronet hanging over his head. You will be entertained with a story of Bootle: his washerwoman came to a friend of hers in great perplexity, and said, "I don't know what to do, pray advise me; my master is gone the circuit, and left me particular orders to send him an express if the King died: but here's the Prince, dead and he said nothing about him." You would easily believe this story, if you knew what a mere law-pedant it is!

The Lord(236) you hint at, certainly did not write the Queries, nor ever any thing so well: he is one of the few discarded; for almost all have offered their services, and been accepted. The King asked the Princess if she had a mind for a master of the horse; that it must be a n.o.bleman, and that he had objections to a particular One, Lord Middles.e.x. I believe she had no objection to his objections, and desired none. Bloodworth is at the head of her stables; of her ministry, Dr. Lee; all knees bow to him. The Duke of Newcastle is so charmed with him, and so sorry he never knew him before, and can't live without him!

He is a grave, worthy man; as a civilian, not much versed in the world of this end of the town, but much a gentleman. He made me a visit the other day on my brother's death, and talked much of the great and good part the King had taken, (who by the way, has been taught by the Princess to talk as much of him,) and that the Prince's servants could no longer oppose, if they meant to be consistent. I told this to Mr. Chute, who replied instantly, , "Pho! he meant to be subsistent." You will not be surprised, though you will be charmed, with a new instance of our friend's disinterested generosity: so far from resenting Whithed's neglect of him, he and your brother, on finding the brute-brothers making difficulties about the child's fortune, have taken upon them to act as trustees for her, and to stand all risks. Did not Mr. Whithed know that Mr. Chute would act just so?

Prince George is created Prince of Wales, and his household is settle(]. Lord Harcourt is his governor, in the room of Lord North, to whom there was no objection but his having a glimpse of parts more than the new one, who is a creature of the Pelhams, and very fit to cipher where Stone is to figure. This latter is sub-governor, with the Bishop of Norwich,(237) preceptor; and Scott sub-preceptor. The Bishop is a sensible, good-humoured gentleman, and believed to be a natural son of the old Archbishop of York.(238) Lord Waldegrave, long a personal favourite of the King, who has now got a little interest at his own court, is warden of the stannaries, in the room of Tom Pitt; old Selwyn, treasurer; Lord Suss.e.x,(239) Lord Downe,(240) and Lord Robert Bertle,(241) lords of the bedchamber; Peachy, a young Schutz, and Digby, grooms: but those of the House of Commons have not kissed hands yet, a difficulty being started, whether, as they are now nominated by the King, it will not vacate their Seats.(242) Potter has resigned as secretary to the Princess, and is succeeded by one Cressett, his predecessor, her chief favourite, and allied to the house of Hanover by a d.u.c.h.ess of Zell,(243) who was of a French family-not of that of Bourbon. I was going on to talk to you of the Regency; but as that measure is not complete, I shall not send away my letter till the end of next week.

My private satisfaction in my nephew of Orford is very great indeed; he has an equal temper of reason and goodness that is most engaging. His mother professes to like him as much as every body else does, but is so much a woman that she will not hurt him at all the less. So far from contributing to retrieve his affairs, she talks to him of nothing but mob stories of his grandfather's having laid up--the Lord knows where!--three hundred thousand pounds for him; and of carrying him with her to Italy, that he may converse with sensible people! In looking over her husband's papers, among many of her intercepted billets-doux, I was much entertained with one, which was curious for the whole orthography, and signed St.i.tara: if Mr. Shirley was to answer it in the same romantic tone, I am persuaded he would subscribe himself the dying Hornadatus. The other learned Italian Countess(244) is disposing of her fourth daughter, the fair Lady Juliana, to Penn, the wealthy sovereign of Pennsylvania;(245) but the nuptials are adjourned till he recovers of a wound in his thigh, which he got by his pistol going off as he was overturned in his post-chaise. Lady Caroline Fox has a legacy of five- thousand pounds from Lord Shelburne,(246) a distant relation, who never saw her but once, and that three weeks before his death. Two years ago Mr. Fox got the ten thousand pound prize.

May 1, 1751.