The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume II Part 15

I am charmed with your behaviour to the Count on the affair of the Leghorn allegiance; I don't wonder he is willing to transport you to Genoa! Your priest's epigram is strong; I suppose he had a dispensation for making a false quant.i.ty in secunda.

Pray tell me if you know any thing of Lady Mary Wortley: we have an obscure history here of her being in durance in the Brescian, or the Bergamasco: that a young fellow whom she set out with keeping has taken it into his head to keep her close prisoner, not permitting her to write or receive any letters but what he sees: he seems determined, if her husband should die, not to lose her, as the Count lost my Lady Orford.(271)

Lord Rockingham told me himself of his Guercino, and seemed obliged for the trouble you had given yourself in executing the commission. I can tell you nothing farther of the pictures at Houghton; Lord Orford has been ill and given over, and is gone to Cheltenham.

The affair of Miss Nicholl is blown up by the treachery of my uncle Horace and some lawyers, that I had employed at his recommendation. I have been forced to write a narrative of the whole transaction, and was with difficulty kept from publishing it. You shall see it whenever I have an opportunity. Mr.

Chute, who has been still worse used than I have been, is, however, in better spirits than he was, since he got rid of all this embroil. I have brought about a reconciliation with his brother, which makes me less regard the other disappointments.

I must bid you good night, for I am at too great a distance to know any news, even if there were any in season. I shall be in town next week, and will not fail you in inquiries, though I am persuaded you will before that have found that all this Genoese mystery was without foundation. Adieu!

(270) Count Richcourt pretended that he had received intelligence from his brother, then minister in London, that Mr. Mann was to be sent on a secret commission to Genoa.

(271) Lord Wharncliffe, in his edition of Lady Mary's Works, vol. iii. p. 435, makes the following observation on this pa.s.sage:--"Among Lady Mary's papers there is a long paper, written in Italian, not by herself, giving an account of her having been detained for some time against her will in a country-house belonging to an Italian Count, and inhabited by him and his mother. This paper seems to have been submitted to a lawyer for his opinion, or to be produced in a court of law.

There is nothing else to be found in Lady Mary's papers referring in the least degree to this circ.u.mstance. It would appear, however, that some such forcible detention as is alluded to did take place, probably for some pecuniary or interested object; but, like many of Horace Walpole's stories, he took care not to let this lose any thing that might give it zest, and he therefore makes the person by whom Lady Mary was detained a young fellow whom she set out with keeping.' Now, at the time of this transaction, Lady Mary was sixty-one years old. The reader, therefore, may judge for himself, how far such an imputation upon her is likely to be founded in truth."-E.

114 Letter 48 To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, Oct. 8, 1751.

So you have totally forgot that I sent you the pedigree of the Crouches, as long ago as the middle of last August, and that you promised to come to Strawberry Hill in October. I shall be there some time in next week, but as my motions neither depend on resolutions nor almanacs, let me know beforehand when you intend to make me a visit; for though keeping an appointment is not just the thing you ever do, I suppose you know you dislike being disappointed yourself, as much as if you were the most punctual person in the world to engagements.

I came yesterday from Woburn, where I have been a week. The house is in building, and three sides of the quadrangle finished. The park is very fine, the woods glorious, and the plantations of evergreens sumptuous; but upon the whole, it is rather -what I admire than like-I fear that is what I am a little apt to do at the finest places in the world where there is not a navigable river. You would be charmed, as I was, with an old gallery, that is not yet destroyed. It is a bad room, powdered with little gold stars, and covered with millions of old portraits. There are all the successions of Earls and Countesses of Bedford, and all their progenies. One countess is a whole-length drawing in the drollest dress you ever saw; and another picture of the same woman leaning on her hand, I believe by Cornelius Johnson, is as fine a head as ever I saw.

There are many of Queen Elizabeth's worthies, the Leicesters, Ess.e.xes, and Philip Sidneys, and a very curious portrait of the last Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, who died at Padua. Have not I read somewhere that he was in love with Queen Elizabeth, and Queen Mary -with him? He is quite in the style of the former's lovers, red-bearded, and not comely. There is Ess.e.x's friend, the Earl of Southampton; his son the Lord Treasurer; and Madame l'Empoisonneuse,(273) that married Carr,(274) Earl of Somerset--she is pretty. Have not you seen a copy Vertue has made of Philip and Mary? That is in this gallery too, but more curious than good. They showed me two heads, who, according to the tradition of the family, were the originals of Castalio and Polydore. They were sons to the second Earl of Bedford; and the eldest, if not both, died before their father. The eldest has vipers in his hand, and in the distant landscape appears in a maze, with these words, Fata viam invenient. The other has a woman behind him, sitting near the sea, with strange monsters surrounding her. I don't pretend to decipher this, nor to describe half the entertaining morsels I found here; but I can't omit, as you know I am Grammont-mad, that I found "le vieux Roussel, qui 'etoit le plus fier danseur d'Angleterre." The portrait is young, but has all the promise of his latter character. I am going to send them a head of a Countess of c.u.mberland,(275) sister to Castalio and Polydore, and mother of a famous Countess of Dorset,(276) who Afterwards married the Earl of Pembroke,(277) of Charles the First's time. She was an auth.o.r.ess, and immensely rich. After the restoration, Sir Joseph Williamson, the secretary of state, wrote to her to choose a courtier at Appleby: she sent him this answer: "I have been bullied by an usurper, I have been ill-treated by a court, but I won't be dictated to by a subject; your man shall not stand. Ann Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery." Adieu! If you love news a hundred years old, I think you can't have a better correspondent. For any thing that pa.s.ses now, I shall not think it worth knowing these fifty years.

(273 Lady Frances Howard, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and married to the Earl of Ess.e.x, from whom she was divorced. She then married her lover, the Earl of Somerset. She poisoned Sir Thomas Overbury, because he had endeavoured to dissuade his friend the Earl of Somerset from this alliance. She was tried and condemned, but was pardoned by King James.

(274) Robert Carr, a favourite of King James the First, who created him Viscount Rochester and Earl of Somerset. He was tried and condemned, but was pardoned by James the First.

(275) Margaret, Countess of c.u.mberland, daughter of Francis Russell, second Earl of Bedford, and married to George Clifford, third Earl of c.u.mberland.

(276)) Ann Clifford, daughter of George, Earl of c.u.mberland, first married to Richard Sackville, Earl of Dorset, and afterwards to Philip, Earl of Pembroke.

(277) Philip, Earl of Pembroke, son of Henry, second Earl of Pembroke. He was chamberlain to Charles the First.

115 Letter 49 To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 14, 1751.

It is above six weeks since I wrote to you, and I was going on to be longer, as I stayed for something to tell you; but an express that arrived yesterday brought a great event, which, though you will hear long before my letter can arrive, serves for a topic to renew our correspondence. The Prince of Orange is dead: killed by the waters of Aix-la-Chapelle. This is all I yet know. I shall go to town to-morrow for a day or two, and if I pick up any particulars before the post goes away, you shall know them. The Princess Royal(278) was established Regent some time ago; but as her husband's authority seemed extremely tottering, it is not likely that she will be able to maintain hers. Her health is extremely bad, and her temper neither ingratiating nor bending. It is become the peculiarity of the House of Orange to have minorities.

Your last letter to me of Sept. 24th, and all I have seen since your first fright, make me easy about your Genoese journey. I take no honour from the completion of my prophecy; it was sufficient to know circ.u.mstances and the trifling falsehood of Richcourt, to confirm me in my belief that that emba.s.sy was never intended. We dispose of Corsica! Alas! I believe there is but one island that we shall ever have power to give away; and that is Great Britain--and I don't know but we may exert our power.

You are exceedingly kind about Mr. Conway-but when are not you so to me and my friends? I have just received a miserable letter from him on his disappointment; he had waited for a man-of-war to embark for Leghorn; it came in the night, left its name upon a card, and was gone before he was awake in the morning, and had any notice of it. He still talks of seeing you; as the Parliament is to meet so soon, I should think he will scarce have time, though I don't hear that he is sent for, or that they will have occasion to send for any body, unless they want to make an Opposition.

We were going to have festivals and masquerades for the birth of the Duke of Burgundy, but I suppose both they and the observance of the King's birthday will be laid aside or postponed, on the death of our son-in-law. Madame de Mirepoix would not stay to preside at her own banquets, but is slipped away to retake possession of the tabouret. When the King wished her husband joy, my Lady Pembroke(279) was standing near him; she was a favourite, but has disgraced herself by marrying a Captain Barnard. Mirepoix said, as he had no children he was indifferent to the honour of a duchy for himself, but was glad it would restore Madame to the honour she had lost by marrying him! "Oh!" replied the King, ,you are of so great a family, the rank was nothing; but I can't bear when women of quality marry one don't know whom!"

Did you ever receive the questions I asked you about Lady Mary Wortley's being confined by a lover that she keeps somewhere in the Brescian? I long to know the particulars. I have lately been at Woburn, where the d.u.c.h.ess of Bedford borrowed for me from a niece of Lady Mary about fifty letters of the latter.

They are charming! have more spirit and vivacity than you can conceive, and as much of the spirit of debauchery in them as you will conceive in her writing. They were written to her sister, the unfortunate Lady Mar, whom she treated so hardly while out of her senses, which she has not entirely recovered, though delivered and tended with the greatest tenderness and affection by her daughter, Lady Margaret Erskine: they live in a house lent to them by the Duke of Bedford; the d.u.c.h.ess is Lady Mary's niece.(280) Ten of the letters, indeed, are dismal lamentations and frights of a scene of villany of Lady Mary, who, having persuaded one Ruremonde, a Frenchman and her lover, to entrust her with a large sum of money to buy stock for him, frightened him out of England, by persuading him that Mr.

Wortley had discovered the intrigue, and would murder him; and then would have sunk the trust. That not succeeding, and he threatening to print her letters, she endeavoured to make Lord Mar or Lord Stair cut his throat. Pope hints at these anecdotes of her history in that line,

"Who starves a sister or denies a debt."(281)

In one of her letters she says, "We all partake of father Adam's folly and knavery, who first eat the apple like a sot, and then turned informer like a scoundrel." This is character, at least, if not very delicate; but in most of them, the wit and style are superior to any letters I ever read but Madame Sevign'e's. It is very remarkable, how much better women write than men. I have now before me a volume of letters written by the widow(282) of the beheaded Lord Russel, which are full of the most moving and expressive eloquence ; I want to persuade the Duke of Bedford to let them be printed.(283)

17th.--I have learned nothing but that the Prince of Orange died of an imposthume in his head. Lord Holderness is gone to Holland to-day--I believe rather to learn than to teach. I have received yours of Oct. 8, and don't credit a word of Birtle's(284) information. Adieu!

(276) Anne, eldest daughter of George the Second. Walpole, in his Memoires, vol. i. p. 173, describes her as being immoderately jealous and fond of her husband : "Yet," adds he, "this Mars, who was locked in the arms of that Venus, was a monster so deformed, that when the King had chosen him for his son-in-law, he could not help, in the honesty of his heart and the coa.r.s.eness of his expression, telling the Princess how hideous a bridegroom she was to expect; and even gave her permission to refuse him: she replied, she would marry him if he was a baboon; "Well, then," said the King, "there is baboon enough for you!"-E.

(279) Mary, daughter of the Viscount Fitzwilliam, formerly maid of honour to the Queen, and widow of Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. [In the preceding month, Lady Pembroke had married North Ludlow Barnard, a major of dragoons. She died in 1769.]

(280) Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Lady Mar, and the first wife of John, Lord Gower, were daughters of Evelyn Pierpoint, Duke of Kingston.

(281) Upon this pa.s.sage Lord Wharncliffe observes, that "nothing whatever has been found to throw light upon the ill treatment of Lady Mar by Lady Mary, and that accusation is supposed, by those who would probably have heard of it if true, to be without foundation." Nine of the ten letters spoken of by Walpole, are given in his lordship's edition of Lady Mary's Works; and, in the opinion of the Quarterly Reviewer, "they confirm, in a very extraordinary way, Horace Walpole's impression." See vol. viii. p. 191.-E.

(282) @Rachel, daughter of Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, lord treasurer. One of these letters to Dr.

Tillotson, to persuade him to accept the archbishopric, has been since printed, and a fragment of another of her letters, in Birch's Life of that prelate.

(283) They were published in 1773, and met with such deserved success as to call for a Seventh edition of them in 1809. In 1819, appeared a quarto volume, ent.i.tled "Some Account of the Life of Rachael Wriothesley, Lady Russell, with Letters from Lady Russell to her husband Lord Russell," by the editor of Madame du Deffand's Letters.-E.

(284) Consul at Genoa: he had heard the report of Mr. Mann's being designed for an emba.s.sy to Genoa.

118 Letter 50 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Nov. 22, 1751.

As the Parliament is met, you will, of course, expect to hear something of it: the only thing to be told of it is, what I believe was never yet to be told of an English Parliament, that it is so unanimous, that we are not likely to have one division this session-Day, I think not a debate.(285) On the Address, Sir John Cotton alone said a few words against a few words of it. Yesterday, on a motion to resume the sentences against Murray, who is fled to France, only two persons objected--in short, we shall not be more a French Parliament when we are under French government. Indeed, the two nations seem to have crossed over and figured in; one hears of nothing from Paris but gunpowder plots in a Duke of Burgundy's cradle (whom the clergy, by a vice versa, have converted into a Pretender,) and menaces of a.s.sa.s.sinations. Have you seen the following verses, that have been stuck up on the Louvre, the Pontneuf, and other places?

"Deux Henris immol'es par nos braves Ayeux, L'un 'a la Libert'e et l'autre 'a nos Dieux, Nous animent, Louis, aux m'emes entreprises: Ils revivent, en Toi ces anciens Tyrans: Crains notre desespoir: La n.o.blesse a des Guises, Paris des Ravaillacs, le Clerg'e des Clements."

Did you ever see more ecclesiastic fury? Don't you like their avowing the cause of Jacques Clement?'and that Henry IV. was sacrificed to a plurality of G.o.ds! a frank confession! though drawn from the author by the rhyme, as Cardinal Bembo, to write cla.s.sic Latin, used to say, Deos immortales! But what most offends me is the threat of murder: it attaints the prerogative of chopping off the heads of Kings in a legal way. We here have been still more interested about a private history that has lately happened at Paris. It seems uncertain by your accounts whether Lady Mary Wortley is in voluntary or constrained durance - it is not at all equivocal that her son and a Mr. Taaffe have been in the latter at Fort LEvesque and the Chatelet.(286) All the letters from Paris have been very cautious of relating the circ.u.mstances. The outlines are, that these two gentlemen, who were pharaoh-bankers to Madame de Mirepoix, had travelled to France to exercise the same profession, where it is suppose(] they cheated a Jew, who would afterwards have cheated them of the money he owed; and that. to secure payment, they broke open his lodgings and bureau, and seized jewels and other effects; that he accused them; that they were taken out of their beds at two o'clock in the morning, kept in different prisons, without fire or candle, for six-and-thirty hours; have since been released on excessive bail; are still to be tried, may be sent to the galleys, or dismissed home, where they will be reduced to keep the best company; for I suppose n.o.body else will converse with them. Their separate anecdotes are curious: Wortley, you know, has been a perfect Gil Blas, and, for one of his last adventures; is thought to have added the famous Miss Ashe to the number of his wives. Taaffe is an Irishman, who changed his religion to fight a duel; as you know in Ireland a Catholic may not wear a sword. He is a gamester, usurer, adventurer, and of late has divided his attentions between the Duke of Newcastle and Madame Pompadour; travelling, with turtles and pine-apples, in postchaises, to the latter,-flying back to the former for Lewes races--and smuggling burgundy at the same time. I shall finish their history with a bon-mot. The Speaker was railing at gaming and White's, apropos to these two prisoners. Lord c.o.ke, to whom the conversation was addressed, replied, "Sir, all I can say is, that they are both members of the House of Commons, and neither of them of White's." Monsieur de Mirepoix sent a card lately to White's, to invite all the chess-players of both 'clamps'. Do but think what a genius a man must have, or, my dear child, do you consider what information you would be capable of sending to your court, if, after pa.s.sing two years in a country, you had learned but the two first letters of"a word, that you heard twenty times every day! I have a bit of paper left, so I will tell you another story. A certain King, that, whatever airs you may give yourself, you are not at all like, was last week at the play. The Intriguing Chambermaid in the farce(287) says to the old gentleman, "You are villanously old; you are sixty-six; you can't have the impudence to think of living above two years." The old gentleman in the stage-box turned about in a pa.s.sion, and said, "This is d-d stuff!" Pray have you got Mr. Conway yet! Adieu!

(285) "Nov. 14 Parliament opened. Lord Downe and Sir William Beauchamp Proctor moved and seconded the Address. No opposition to it." Dodington, p. 114. Tindal says that this session was, perhaps, the most unanimous ever known."-E.

(286) See ant'e.-E.

(287) The Intriguing Chambermaid was performed at Drury-lane on the 6th of November; it was dedicated by Fielding to Mrs.

Clive.-E.

119 Letter 51 To Sir Horace Mann.

Dec. 12, 1751.

I have received yours and Mr. Conway's letters, and am transported that you have met at last, and that you answer so well to one another, as I intended. I expect that you tell me more and more all that you think of him. The inclosed is for him; as he has never received one of my letters since he left England, I have exhausted all my news upon him, and for this post you must only go halves with him, who I trust is still at Florence. In your last, you mentioned Lord Stormont, and commend him; pray tell me more about him. He is cried up above all the young men of the time-in truth we want recruits! Lord Bolingbroke is dead, or dying,(288) of a cancer, which was thought cured by a quack plaster; but it is not every body can be cured at seventy-five, like my monstrous uncle.

What is an uomo nero?-neither Mr. Chute nor I can recollect the term. Though you are in the season of the villegiatura, believe me, Mr. Conway will not find Florence duller than he would London: our diversions, politics, quarrels, are buried all in our Alphonso's grave!(289) The only thing talked of is a man who draws teeth with a sixpence, and puts them in again for a shilling. I believe it; not that it seems probable, but because I have long been persuaded that the most incredible discoveries will be made, and that, about the time, or a little after, I die, the secret will be found out of how to live for ever--and that secret, I believe, will not be discovered by a physician. Adieu!