The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume II Part 18

You will be pleased with a story of Lord Bury, that is come from Scotland: he is quartered at Inverness: the magistrates invited him to an entertainment with fire-works, which they intended to give on the morrow for the Duke's birthday. He thanked them, a.s.sured them he would represent their zeal to his Royal Highness; but he did not doubt but it would be more agreeable to him, if they postponed it to the day following, the anniversary of the battle of Culloden. They stared, said they could not promise on their own authority, but would go and consult their body. They returned, told him it was unprecedented, and could not be complied with. Lord Bury replied, he was sorry they had not given a negative at once, for he had mentioned it to his soldiers, who would not bear a disappointment, and was afraid it would provoke them to some outrage upon the town. This did;-they celebrated Culloden.

Adieu!

(312) George Morton Pitt, Esq, Member for Pontefract.-E.

(313) Mr. Walpole called his gold-fish pond, Poyang.

(314) The Earl of Halifax.

131 Letter 60 To George Montagu, Esq.

Twickenham, Thursday.

Dear George, Since you give me leave to speak the truth, I must own it is not quite agreeable to me to undertake the commission you give me; nor do I say this to a.s.sume any merit in having obeyed you, but to prepare you against my solicitation miscarrying, for I cannot flatter myself with having so much interest with Mr. Fox as you think. However, I have wrote to him as pressingly as I could, and wish most heartily it may have any effect. Your brother I imagine will call upon him again; and Mr.' Fox will naturally tell him whether he can do it or not at my request.

I should have been very glad of your company, if it had been convenient. You would have found me an absolute country gentleman: I am in the garden, planting as long as it is light, and shall not have finished, to be in London, before the middle of next week.

My compliments to your sisters and to the Colonel; and what so poor a man as Hamlet is, may do to express his love and friending to him, G.o.d willing, shall not lack. Adieu!

132 Letter 61 The Hon. H. S. Conway.(315) Strawberry Hill, June 23, 1752.

By a letter that I received from my Lady Ailesbury two days ago, I flatter myself I shall not have occasion to write to you any more; yet I shall certainly see you with less pleasure than ever, as our meeting is to be attended with a resignation of my little charge.(316) She is vastly well, and I think you will find her grown fat. I am husband enough to mind her beauty no longer, and perhaps you will say husband enough too, in pretending that my love is converted into friendship; but I shall tell you some stories at Park-place of her understanding that will please you, I trust, as much as they have done me.

My Lady Ailesbury says I must send her news, and the whole history of Mr. Seymour and Lady Di. Egerton, and their quarrel, and all that is said on both sides. I can easily tell her all that is said on one side, Mr. Seymour's, who says, the only answer he has ever been able to get from the d.u.c.h.ess or Mr.

Lyttelton was, that Di. has her caprices. The reasons she gives, and gave him, were, the badness of his temper and imperiousness of his letters; that he scolded her for the overfondness of her epistles, and was even so unsentimental as to talk of desiring to make her happy, instead of being made so by her. He is gone abroad, in despair, and with an additional circ.u.mstance, which would be very uncomfortable to any thing but a true lover; his father refuses to resettle the estate on him, the entail of which was cut off by mutual consent, to make way for the settlements on the marriage.

The Speaker told me t'other day, that he had received a letter from Lord Hyde, which confirms what Mr. Churchill writes me, the distress and poverty of France and the greatness of their divisions. Yet the King's expenses are incredible; Madame de Pompadour is continually busied in finding out new journeys and diversions to keep him from falling into the hands of the clergy. The last party of pleasure she made for him, was a stag-hunting; the stag was a man in a skin and horns, worried by twelve men dressed like bloodhounds! I have read of Basilowitz, a Czar of Muscovy, who improved on such a hunt, and had a man in a bearskin worried by real dogs; a more kingly entertainment!

I shall make out a sad Journal of other news; yet I will be like any gazette, and sc.r.a.pe together all the births, deaths, and marriages in the parish. Lady Hartington and Lady Rachel Walpole are brought to bed of sons; Lord Burlington and Lord Gower have had new attacks of palsies: Lord Falkland is to marry the Southwark Lady Suffolk;(317) and Mr. Watson, Miss Grace Pelham. Lady Coventry has miscarried of one or two children, and is going on with one or two more, and is gone to France to-day. Lady Townshend and Lady Caroline Petersham have had their anniversary quarrel, and the d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire has had her secular a.s.sembly, which she keeps once in fifty years: she was more delightfully vulgar at it than you can imagine; complained of the wet night, and how the men would dirty the rooms with their shoes; called out at supper to the Duke, "Good G.o.d! my lord, don't cut the ham, n.o.body will eat any!" and relating her private m'enage to Mr. Obnir, she said, "When there's only my lord and I, besides a pudding we have always a dish of Yeast!" I am ashamed to send you such nonsense, or to tell you how the good women at Hampton Court are scandalized at Princess Emily's coming to chapel last Sunday in riding-clothes with a dog under her arm; but I am bid to send news: what can we do -,it such a dead time of year? I must conclude, as my Lady Gower did very well t'other day in a letter into the country, "Since the two Misses(318) were hanged, and the two Misses(319) were married, there is nothing at all talked of." Adieu! My best compliments and my wife's to your two ladies.

(315) Now first published.

(316) Their daughter, Ann Seymour Conway.

(317) Sarah, d.u.c.h.ess-dowager of Suffolk, daughter of Thomas Unwen, Esq. of Southwark.-E.

(318) Miss Blandy and Miss Jefferies.

(319) The Gunnings.

133 Letter 62 To George Montagu, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, July 20, 1752.

You have threatened me with a messenger from the secretary's office to seize my papers; who would ever have taken you for a prophet? If Goody Compton ,(320) your colleague, had taken upon her to foretell, there was enough of the witch and prophetess in her person and mysteriousness to have made a superst.i.tious person believe she might be a cousin of Nostradamus, and heiress of some of her visions; but how came you by second sight? Which of the Cues matched in the Highlands? In short, not to keep you in suspense, for I believe you are so far inspired as to be ignorant how your prophecy was to be accomplished, as we were sitting at dinner t'other day, word was brought that one of the King's messengers was at the door. Every drop of ink in my pen ran cold; Algernon Sidney danced before my eyes, and methought I heard my Lord Chief-Justice Lee, in a voice as dreadful as Jefferies', mumble out, Scribere est agere. How comfortable it was to find that Mr. Amyand, who was at table, had ordered this appanage of his dignity to attend him here for orders!

However, I have buried the Memoires under the oak in my garden, where they are to be found a thousand years hence, and taken perhaps for a Runic history in rhyme. I have part of another valuable MS. to dispose of, which I shall beg leave to commit to your care, and desire it may be concealed behind the wainscot in Mr. Bentley's Gothic house, whenever you build it. As the great person is living to whom it belonged, it would be highly dangerous to make it public; as soon as she is in disgrace, I don't know whether it Will not be a good way of making court to her successor, to communicate it to the world, as I propose doing, under the following t.i.tle: "The Treasury of Art and Nature, or a Collection of inestimable Receipts, stolen out of the Cabinet of Madame de Pompadour, and now first published for the use of his fair Countrywomen, by a true born Englishman and philomystic." * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So the pretty Miss Bishop,(321) instead of being my niece, is to be Mrs. Bob Brudenel. What foolish birds are turtles when they have scarce a hole to roost in! Adieu!

(320) The Hun. George Compton. son of Lord Northampton, Mr.

Montagu's colleague for Northampton.-E.

(321) Daughter of Sir Cecil Bishop.

134 Letter 63 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, July 27, 1752.

What will you say to me after a silence of two months? I should be ashamed, if I were answerable for the whole world, who will do nothing worth repeating. Newspapers have horse-races, and can invent casualties, but I can't have the confidence to stuff a letter with either. The only casualty that is of dignity enough to send you, is a great fire at Lincoln's Inn, which is likely to afford new work for the lawyers, in consequence of the number of deeds and writings it has consumed. The Duke of Kingston has lost many of his: he is unlucky with fires: Th.o.r.esby, his seat, was burnt a few years ago, and in it a whole room of valuable letters and ma.n.u.scripts. There has been a Very considerable loss of that kind at this fire: Mr. Yorke, the Chancellor's son, had a great collection of Lord Somers's papers, many relating to the a.s.sa.s.sination plot; and by which, I am told, it appeared that the Duke of Marlborough was deep in the schemes of St. Germain's.

There are great civil wars in the neighbourhood of Strawberry Hill: Princess Emily, who succeeded my brother in the rangership of Richmond Park, has imitated her brother William's unpopularity, and disobliged the whole country, by refusal of tickets and liberties, that had always been allowed. They are at law with her, and have printed in the Evening Post a strong Memorial, which she had refused to receive-.(322) The High Sheriff of Surrey, to whom she had denied a ticket, but on better thought had sent one, refused it, and said he had taken his part. Lord Brooke(323) who had applied for one, was told he could not have one-and to add to the affront@, it was signified. that the Princess had refused one to my Lord Chancellor--your old n.o.bility don't understand such comparisons!

But the most remarkable event happened to her about three weeks ago. One Mr. Bird, a rich gentleman near the park, was applied to by the late Queen for a piece of ground that lay convenient for a walk she was making: he replied, it was not proper for him to pretend to make a Queen a present; but if she would do what she pleased with the ground, he would be content with the acknowledgment of a key and two bucks a-year. This was religiously observed till the era of her Royal Highness's reign; the bucks were denied, and he himself once shut out, on pretence it was fence-month (the breeding-time, when tickets used to be excluded, keys never.) The Princess soon after was going through his grounds to town; she found a padlock on his gate; she ordered it to be broke open: Mr. Shaw, her deputy, begged a respite, till he could go for the key. He found Mr.

Bird at home--"Lord, Sir! here is a strange mistake; the Princess is at the gate, and it is padlocked!" "Mistake! no mistake at all - I made the road: the ground is my own property: her Royal Highness has thought fit to break the agreement which her Royal Mother made with me: n.o.body goes through my grounds but those I choose should. Translate this to your Florentinese; try if you can make them conceive how pleasant it is to treat blood royal thus!

There are dissensions of more consequence in the same neighbourhood. The tutorhood at Kew is split into factions: the Bishop of Norwich and Lord Harcourt openly at war with Stone and Scott, who are supported by Cresset, and countenanced by the Princess and Murray--so my Lord Bolinbroke dead, will govern, which he never could living! It is believed that the Bishop will be banished into the rich bishopric of Durham, which is just vacant-how pleasant to be punished, after teaching the boys a year, with as much as he could have got if he had taught them twenty! Will they ever expect a peaceable prelate, if untractableness is thus punished?

Your painter Astley is arrived: I have missed seeing him by being constantly at Strawberry Hill, but I intend to serve him to the utmost of my power, as you will easily believe, since he has your recommendation.

Our beauties are travelling Paris-ward: Lady Caroline Petersham and Lady Coventry are just gone thither. It will scarce be possible for the latter to make as much noise there as she and her sister have in England. It is literally true that a shoemaker it Worcester got two guineas and a half by showing a shoo that he was making for the Countess, at a penny a piece.

I can't say her genius is equal to her beauty: she every day says some new sproposito. She has taken a turn of vast fondness for her lord: Lord Downe met them at Calais, and offered her a tent-bed, for fear of bugs in the inns. "Oh!"

said she, "I had rather be bit to death, than lie one night from my dear Cov.!" I can conceive my Lady Caroline making a good deal of noise even at Paris; her beauty is set off by a genius for the extraordinary, and for strokes that will make a figure in any country. Mr. Churchill and my sister are just arrived from France; you know my pa.s.sion for the writing of the younger Cr'ebillon:(324) you shall hear how I have been mortified by the discovery of the greatest meanness in him; and you will judge how much one must be humbled to have one's favourite author convicted of mere mercenariness! I had desired lady Mary to lay out thirty guineas for ne with Liotard, and wished, if I could, to have the portraits of Cr'ebillon and Marivaux(325) for my cabinet.

Mr. Churchill wrote me word that Liotard's(326) price was sixteen guineas; that Marivaux was intimate with him, and would certainly sit, and that he believed he could get Cr'ebillon to sit too. The latter, who is retired into the provinces with an English wife,(327) was just then at Paris for a month: Mr.

Churchill went to him, told him that a gentleman in England, who was making a collection of portraits of famous people, would be happy to have his, etc. Cr'ebillon was humble, "unworthy," obliged; and sat: the picture was just finished, when, behold! he sent Mr. Churchill word, that he expected to have a copy of the picture given him-neither more nor less than asking sixteen guineas for sitting! Mr. Churchill answered that he could not tell what he should do, were it his own case, but that this was a limited commission, and he could not possibly lay out double; and was now so near his return, that he could not have time to write to England and receive an answer. Cr'ebillon said, then he would keep the picture himself-it was excessively like. I am still sentimental enough to flatter myself, that a man who could beg sixteen gineas will not give them, and so I may still have the picture.

I am going to trouble you with a commission, my dear Sir, that will not subject me to any such humiliations. You may have heard that I am always piddling about ornaments and improvements for Strawberry Hill-I am now doing a great deal to the house--stay, I don't want Genoa damask!(328) What I shall trouble you to buy is for the garden: there is a small recess, for which I should be glad to have an antique Roman sepulchral altar, of the kind of the pedestal to my eagle; but as it will stand out of doors, I should not desire to have it a fine one: a moderate one, I imagine, might be picked up easily at Rome at a moderate price: if you could order any body to buy such an one, I should be much obliged to you.

We have had an article in our papers that the Empress-queen had desired the King of France to let her have Mesdames de Craon and de la Calmette, ladies of great piety and birth, to form an academy for the young Archd.u.c.h.esses-is there any truth in this?

is the Princess to triumph thus at last over Richcourt? I should be glad. What a comical genealogy in education! the mistress and mother of twenty children to Duke Leopold, being the pious tutoress to his grand-daughters! How the old d.u.c.h.ess of Lorrain will shiver in her coffin at the thoughts of it? Who is la Calmette? Adieu! my dear child! You see my spirit of justice: when I have not writ to you for two months, I punish you with a reparation of six pages!--had not I better write one line every fortnight?

(322) The memorial will be found in the Gentleman's Magazine for this year. In December the park was opened by the King's order.-E.

(323) Francis Greville, Earl Brooke.

(324) Claude Prosper Jolyot de Cr'ebillon, son of the tragic poet of that name, and author of many licentious novels, which are now but little read. He was born in 1707, and died in 1777.-D. ["The taste for his writings," says the Edinburgh Reviewers, " pa.s.sed away very rapidly and completely in France; and long before his death, the author of the Sopha, and Les Egaremens du Coeur et de l'Esprit, had the mortification to be utterly forgotten by the public." Vol. xxi. p. 284.]

(325) Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux, the author of numerous plays and novels, some of which possess considerable merit. The peculiar affectation of his style occasioned the invention of the word marivaudage, to express the way of writing of him and his imitators. He was born in 1688, and died in 1763.-D.

(326) Walpole, in his Anecdotes of Painting, states Liotard to have been an admirable miniature and enamel painter. At Rome he was taken notice of by the Earl of Sandwich, and by Lord Besborough, then Lord Duncannon. See Museum Florentinum, vol.

x.; where the name of the last mentioned n.o.bleman is spelled Milord D'un Canon.-E.