The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume II Part 23

"Dear Sir, Wrote you a supernumerary letter on Sat.u.r.day, but as I find you have shifted your quarters since I heard from 'YOU, imagine it may not have reached you yet. If you want to know what made me so a.s.siduous, it was to tell you Sir Danvers...o...b..rn has kissed hands for New York, that's all. I am sincerely yours.

"P.S. I wish you Would write to him mentioning me, that's more."

(387) At Brewern, in Oxfordshire.-E.

(388) Second son of the Marquis of Townshend.

167 Letter 78 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, May 24, 1753.

It is well you are married! How would my Lady Ailesbury have liked to be asked in a parish church for three Sundays running?

I really believe she would have worn her weeds for ever, rather than have pa.s.sed through so impudent a ceremony! What do you think? But you will want to know the interpretation of this preamble. Why, there is a new bill, which, under the notion of preventing clandestine marriages, has made such a general rummage and reform in the office of matrimony that every Strephon and Chloe, every dowager and her Hussey, will have as many impediments and formalities to undergo as a treaty of peace. Lord Bath invented this bill,(389) but had drawn it so ill, that the Chancellor was forced to draw a new one, and then grew so fond of his own creature, that he has crammed it down the throats of both Houses-though they gave many a gulp before they could swallow it. The Duke of Bedford attacked it first with great spirit and mastery, but had little support, though the Duke of Newcastle did not vote. The lawyers were all ordered to purse it through our House: but except the poor Attorney-general,(390) "Who is nurse indeed. to all intents and purposes, and did amply gossip over it, not one of them said a word. Nugent shone extremely in opposition to the bill, and, though every now and then on the precipice of absurdity, kept clear of it, with great humour and wit and argument, and was unanswered-yet we were beat. Last Monday it came into the committee: Charles Townshend acted a very good speech with great cleverness, and drew a picture of his own story and his father's tyranny, with at least as much parts as modesty. Mr.

Fox mumbled the Chancellor and his lawyers, and pinned the plan of the bill upon a pamphlet he had found of Dr. Gally's,(391) where the doctor, recommending the French scheme of matrimony, says, "It was found that fathers were too apt to forgive." "The Gospel, I thought," said Mr. Fox, "enjoined forgiveness; but pious Dr. Gal] v thinks fathers are too apt to forgive." Mr.

Pelham, extremely in his opinion against the bill, and in his inclination too, was forced to rivet it, and, without speaking one word for it, taught the House how to vote for it; and it was carried against the Chairman's leaving the chair by 165 to 84.

This Is all the news I know, or at least was all when I came out of town; for I left the tinkering of the bill, and came hither last Tuesday to my workmen. I flatter myself I shall get into tolerable order to receive my Lady Ailesbury and you at your return from Sligo, from whence I have received 'your letter, and where I hope you have had my first. I say nothing of the exile of the Parliament of Paris for I know no more than you will see in the public papers; only, as we are going to choose a new Parliament, we could not do better than choose the exiles: we could scarce choose braver or honester men. I say as little of Mademoiselle Murphy,(392) for I conclude you hear nothing but her health drank in whiskey. Don't all the nailed Irish flatter themselves with preferment, and claim relation with her? Miss Chudleigh says, there is some sense in belonging to a king who turns off an old mistress when he has got a new one.

Arlington Street, May 29.

I am Come to town for a day or two, and find that the Marriage-bill has not only lasted till now-in the committee, but has produced, or at least disclosed, extreme heats. Mr.

Fox and Mr. Pelham have had very high words on every clause, and the former has renewed his attacks on the Chancellor under the name of Dr. Gally. Yesterday on the nullity clause they sat till half an hour after three in the morning, having just then had a division On adjournment, which was rejected by the ministry by above 80 to 70. The Speaker, who had spoken well against the clause, was so misrepresented by the Attorney-general, that there was danger of a skimmington between the great wig and the coif, the former having given a flat lie to the latter. Mr. Fox I am told, outdid himself for spirit, and severity on the Chancellor and the lawyers. I say I am told; for I was content with having been beat twice, and did not attend. The heats between the two ministers were far from cooling by the length of the debate. Adieu! You did little expect in these times, and at this season, to have heard such a parliamentary history! The bill is not near finished;(393) Mr. Fox has declared he will dispute every inch of ground. I hope he won't be banished to Pontoise.(394) I shall write to you no more; so pray return. I hear most favourable accounts of my Lady Ailesbury.

(389) The following is Tindal's account of the origin of this bill: "The fatal consequences of clandestine marriages had been long complained of in England, as rendering the succession to all property insecure and doubtful. Every day produced hearings of the most shocking kind in the court of Chancery, and appeals in the House of Lords, concerning the validity of such marriages; and sometimes the innocent offspring were cut off from succession, though their parents had been married bona fide, because of the irregularity of such marriage. On the other hand, both women and men of the most infamous characters had opportunities of ruining the sons and daughters of the greatest families in England, by conveniences of marrying in the Fleet, and other unlicensed places; and marrying was now become as much a trade as any mechanical profession."-E.

(390 Sir Dudley Ryder.

(391) Dr. Henry Gally, one of the King's chaplains in ordinary.

Besides the pamphlet here spoken of, which was ent.i.tled "Some Considerations upon Clandestine Marriages," he wrote a "Dissertation on p.r.o.nouncing the Greek Language," and several other works He died in 1769.-E.

(392) An Irishwoman who was, for a short time, mistress to Louis XV.

(393) "The opposition to the bill was such that few clauses remained unaltered; and Mr. Fox, holding it up in the House, as Antony exposed the murdered body of Caesar, made a kind of a parody of the speech in Shakespeare upon that occasion."

Tindal.-E.

(394) The Parliament of Paris having espoused the clause of religious liberty, and apprehended several priests who, by the authority of the Archbishop of Paris and other prelates, had refused the sacraments to those who would not subscribe to the bull Unigunitus, were banished by Louis XV. to Pontoise.

169 Letter 79 To George Montagu, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, June 11, 1753.

You will think me very fickle, and that I have but a slight regard to the castle I am building for my ancestors, when you hear that I have been these last eight days in London amid dust and stinks, instead of seringa, roses, battlements, and niches; but you perhaps recollect that I have another Gothic pa.s.sion, which is for squabbles in the Wittenagemot.(395) I can't say that the contests have run so high in either House as they have sometimes done in former days, but this age has found out a new method of parliamentary altercations. The Commons abuse the Barons, and the Barons return it; in short, Mr. Fox attacked the Chancellor violently on the Marriage-bill; and when it was sent back to the Lords, the Chancellor made the most outrageous invectives on Fox that ever was heard. But what offends still more,--I don't mean offends Fox more,--was the Chancellor describing the chief persons who had opposed his bill in the Commons, and giving reason why he excused them. As the speaker was in the number of the excused, the two maces are ready to come to blows.(396) The town says Mr. Fox is to be dismissed, but I can scarce think it will go so far.

My Lord Cornwallis is made an earl; Lord Bristol's sisters have the rank of Earl's daughters; Damer is Lord Milton in Ireland, and the new Lord Barnard is, I hear, to be Earl of Darlington.

Poor Lady Caroline Brand is dead of a rheumatic fever, and her husband as miserable a man as ever he was a cheerful one: I grieve much for her, and pity him; they were infinitely happy, and lived in the most perfect friendship I ever saw.

You may be a.s.sured that I will pay you a visit some time this summer, though not yet, as I cannot leave my workmen, especially as we have a painter who paints the paper on the staircase under Mr. Bentley's direction. The armoury bespeaks the ancient chivalry of the lords of the castle; and I have filled Mr. Bentley's Gothic lanthorn with painted gla.s.s, which casts the most venerable gloom on the stairs that ever was seen since the days of Abelard. The lanthorn itself, in which I have stuck a coat of the Veres, is supposed to have come from Castle Henningham. Lord and Lady Vere were here t'other day, and called cousins with it, and would very readily have invited it to Hanworth; but her Portuguese blood has so blackened the true stream that I could not bring myself to offer so fair a gift to their chapel.

I shall only tell you a bon-mot of Keith's, the marriage-broker, and conclude. "G-d d-n the bishops!" said he, (I beg Miss Montagu's pardon,) "so they will hinder my marrying. Well, let 'em; but I'll be revenged! I'll buy two or three acres of ground, and, by G-d! I'll underbury them all!" Adieu!

(395) The name of the Saxon great council, the supposed origin of parliaments.

(396) Among the Hardwicke papers there is a letter from Dr.

Birch to the Hon. Philip Yorke, giving an account of the debate in the House of Lords. The following is an extract:-- "My Lord Chancellor expressed his surprise, that the bill should have been styled out of doors an absurd, a cruel, a scandalous, and a wicked one. With regard to his own share in this torrent of abuse, as he was obliged to those who had so honourably defended him, so,' said he, 'I despise the invective, and I despise the retractation; I despise the scurrility, and I reject the adulation.' Mr. Fox was not present, but had soon an account of what had pa.s.sed; for the same evening, being at Vauxhall with some ladies, he broke from them, and collecting a little circle of young members of parliament and others, told them with great eagerness, that he wished the session had continued a fortnight longer, for then he would have made ample returns to the Lord Chancellor. The Speaker talks of my Lord Chancellor's speech in the style of Mr. Fox, as deserving of the notice of the Commons, if they had not been prorogued."-E.

170 Letter 80 To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, June 12, 1753.

I could not rest any longer with the thought of your having no idea of a place of which you hear so much, and therefore desired Mr. Bentley to draw you as much idea of it as the post would be persuaded to carry from Twickenham to Florence. The enclosed enchanted little landscape, then, is Strawberry Hill; and I will try to explain so much of it to you as will help to let you know whereabouts we are when we are talking to you; for it is uncomfortable in so intimate a correspondence as ours not to be exactly master of every spot where one another is writing, or reading, or sauntering. This view of the castle(397) is what I have just finished, and is the only side that will be at all regular. Directly before it is an open grove, through which you see a field, which is bounded by a serpentine wood of all kind of trees, and flowering shrubs, and flowers! The lawn before the house is situated on the top of a small hill, from whence to the left you see the town and church of Twickenham encircling a turn of the river, that looks exactly like a seaport in miniature. The opposite sh.o.r.e is a most delicious meadow, bounded by Richmond Hill, which loses itself in the n.o.ble woods of the park to the end of the prospect on the right, where is another turn of the river, and the suburbs of Kingston as luckily placed as Twickenham is on the left; and a natural terrace on the brow of my hill, with meadows of my own down to the river, commands both extremities.

Is not this a tolerable prospect? You must figure that all this is perpetually enlivened by a navigation of boats and barges, and by a road below my terrace, with coaches, post-chaises, wagons, and hors.e.m.e.n constantly in motion, and the fields speckled with cows, horses, and sheep. Now you shall walk into the house. The bow-window below leads into a little parlour hung with a stone-colour Gothic paper and Jackson's Venetian prints, which I could never endure while they pretended, infamous as they are, to be after t.i.tian, etc., but when I gave them this air of barbarous basreliefs, they succeeded to a miracle: it is impossible at first sight not to conclude that they contain the history of Attila or Tottila, done about the very aera. From hence, under two gloomy arches, you come to the hall and staircase, which it is impossible to describe to you, as it is the most particular and chief beauty of the castle. Imagine the walls covered with (I call it paper, but it is really paper painted in perspective to represent) Gothic fretwork: the lightest Gothic bal.u.s.trade to the staircase, adorned with antelopes (our supporters) bearing shields lean windows fattened with rich saints in painted gla.s.s, and a vestibule open with three arches on the landing-place, and niches full of trophies of old coats of mail, Indian shields made of rhinoceros's hides, broadswords, quivers, long bows, arrows, and spears--all supposed to be taken by Mr Terry Robsart(398) in the holy wars. But as none of' this regards the enclosed drawing, I will pa.s.s to that. The room on the ground-floor nearest to you is a bedchamber, hung with yellow paper and prints, framed in a new manner, invented by Lord Cardigan; that is, with black and white borders printed. Over this is Mr. Chute's bedchamber, hung with red in the same manner. The bow-window room one pair of stairs is not yet finished; but in the tower beyond it is the charming closet where I am now writing to you. It is hung with green paper and water-colour pictures; has two windows; the one in the drawing looks to the garden, the other to the beautiful prospect; and the top of each glutted with the richest painted gla.s.s of the arms of England, crimson roses, and twenty other pieces of green, purple, and historic bits. I must tell you, by the way, that the castle, when finished, will have two-and-thirty windows enriched with painted gla.s.s. In this closet, which is Mr. Chute's college of arms, are two presses with books of heraldry and antiquities, Madame Sevign'e's Letters, and any French books that relate to her and her acquaintance. Out of this closet is the room where we always live, hung with a blue and white paper in stripes adorned with festoons, and a thousand plump chairs, couches, and luxurious settees covered with linen of the same pattern, and with a bow-window commanding the prospect, and gloomed with limes that shade half each window, already darkened with painted gla.s.s in chiaroscuro, set in deep blue gla.s.s. Under this room is a cool little hall, where we generally dine, hung with paper to imitate Dutch tiles.

I have described so much, that you will begin to think that all the accounts I used to give you of the diminutiveness of our habitation were fabulous; but it is really incredible how small most of the rooms are. The Only two good chambers I shall have are not yet built; they will be an eating-room and a library, each twenty by thirty, and the latter fifteen feet high. For the rest of the house, I could send it you in this letter as easily as the drawing, only that I should have no where to live till the return of the post. The Chinese summer-house which you may distinguish in the distant landscape, belongs to my Lord Radnor. We pique ourselves upon nothing but simplicity, and have no carvings, gildings, paintings, inlayings, or tawdry businesses.

You will not be sorry, I believe,. by this time to have done with Strawberry Hill, and to hear a little news. The end of a very dreaming session has been extremely enlivened by an accidental bill which has opened great quarrels, and those not unlikely to be attended with interesting circ.u.mstances. A bill to prevent clandestine marriages, so drawn by the Judges as to clog all matrimony in general, was inadvertently espoused by the Chancellor; and having been strongly attacked in the House of Commons by Nugent, the Speaker, Mr. Fox, and others, the last went very great lengths of severity on the whole body of the law, and on its chieftain in particular-, which, however, at the last reading, he softened and explained off extremely.

This did not ,appease; but on the return of the bill to the House of Lords, where our amendments were to be read, the Chancellor in the most personal terms harangued against Fox, and concluded with saying that "he despised his scurrility as much as his adulation and recantation." As Christian charity is not one of the oaths taken by privy-counsellors, and as it is not the most eminent virtue in either of the champions, this quarrel is not likely to be soon reconciled. There are natures(399) whose disposition it is to patch up political breaches, but whether they will succeed, or try to succeed in healing this, can I tell you?

The match for Lord Granville, which I announced to you, is not concluded: his flames are cooled in that quarter as well as in others.

I begin a new sheet to you, which does not match with the other, for I have no more of the same paper here. Dr. Cameron is executed, and died with the greatest firmness. His parting with his wife the night before was heroic and tender: he let her stay till the last moment, when being aware that the gates of the Tower would be locked, he told her so; she fell at his feet in agonies: he said, "Madam, this was not what you promised me," and embracing her, forced her to retire; then with the same coolness, looked at the window till her coach was out of sight, after which he turned about and wept. His only concern seemed to be at the ignominy of Tyburn: he was not disturbed at the dresser for his body, or at the fire to burn his bowels.(400) The crowd was so great, that a friend who attended him could not get away, but was forced to stay and behold the execution: but what will you say to the minister or priest who accompanied him? The wretch, after taking leave, went into a landau, where, not content with seeing the Doctor hanged, he let down the top of the landau for the better convenience of seeing him embowelled! I cannot tell you positively that what I hinted of this Cameron being commissioned from Prussia was true, but so it is believed. Adieu! my dear child; I think this is a very tolerable letter for summer!

(397) It was a view of the south side towards the northeast.

(398) An ancestor of Sir Robert Walpole, who was knight of the garter.

(399) An allusion to Mr. Pelham.

(400) "The populace," says Smollet, though not very subject to tender emotions, were moved to compa.s.sion, and even to tears, by his behaviour at the place of execution; and many sincere well-wishers to the present establishment thought that the sacrifice of this victim, at such a juncture, could not redound either to its honour or security."-E.

173 Letter 81 To George Montagu, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, July 17, 1753.

Dear sir, You are so kind, that I am peevish with myself for not being able to fix a positive day for being with you; as near as I can guess, it will be some of the very first days of the next month: I am engaged to go with Lady Ailesbury and Mr. Conway to Stowe, the 28th of this month, if some little business which I have here does not prevent me; and from thence I propose to meet Mr. Chute at Greatworth. If this should at all interfere with your schemes, tell me so; especially, I must beg that you would not so far depend on me as to stay one minute from doing any thing else you like, because it is quite impossible for me to be sure that I can execute just at the time I propose such agreeable projects. Meeting Mrs. Trevor will be a princ.i.p.al part of my pleasure; but the summer shall certainly not pa.s.s without my seeing you.

You will, I am sure, be concerned to hear that your favourite, Miss Brown, the pretty Catholic, who lived with Madame d'Acunha, is dead at Paris, by the ignorance of the physician.

Tom Harvey, who always obliges the town with a quarrel in a dead season, has published a delightful letter to Sir William Bunbury,(401) full of madness and wit. He had given the Doctor a precedent for a clergyman's fighting a duel, and I furnished him with another story of the same kind, that diverted him extremely. A Dr. Suckling, who married a niece of my father, quarrelled with a country squire, who said, "Doctor, your gown is your protection." "Is it so?" replied the parson; "but, by G.o.d! it shall not be yours;" pulled it off, and thrashed him--I was going to say d.a.m.nably, at least, divinely. Do but think, my Lord c.o.ke and Tom Harvey are both bound to the peace, and are always going to fight together: how comfortable for their sureties!

My Lord Pomfret is dead; George Selwyn says, that my Lord Ashburnham(402) is not more glad to get into the parks than Lord Falkland is to get out of them. You know he was forced to live in a privileged place.

Jack Hill(403) is dead too, and has dropped about a hundred legacies; a thousand pound to the Dowager of Rockingham; as much, with all his plate and china, to her sister Bel. I don't find that my uncle has got so much as a case of knives and forks, he always paid great court, but Mary Magdalen, my aunt, undid all by scolding the man, and her spouse durst not take his part.

Lady Anne Paulett's daughter is eloped with a country clergyman. The d.u.c.h.ess of Argyle Harangues against the Marriage-bill not taking place immediately, and is persuaded that all the girls will go off before next lady-day.