The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume II Part 31

Mr. Chute is much yours: I am going with him in a day or two to his Vine, where I shall try to draw him into amusing himself a little with building and planting; hitherto he has done nothing with his estate-but good.

You will have observed what precaution I had taken, in the smallness of the sheet, not to have too much paper to fill; and yet you see how much I have still upon my hands! As, I a.s.sure you, were I to fill the remainder, all I should say would be terribly wiredrawn, do excuse me: you shall hear an ample detail of the first Admiral Vernon that springs out of our American war; and I promise you at least half a brick of the first sample that is sent over of any new Porto Bello. The French have tied up the hands of an excellent fanfaron, a Major Washington,(511) whom they took, and engaged not to serve for a year. In his letter, he said, "Believe me, as the cannon-b.a.l.l.s flew over my head. they made a most delightful sound." When your relation, General Guise, was marching up to Carthagena, and the pelicans whistled round him, he said, "What would Chlo'e(512) give for some of these to make a pelican pie?" The conjecture made that scarce a rodomontade; but what pity it is, that a man who can deal in hyperboles at the mouth of a cannon, should be fond of them with a gla.s.s of wine in his hand! I have heard Guise affirm, that the colliers at Newcastle feed their children with fire-shovels! Good night.

(511) This was the celebrated Liberator of America, who had been serving in the English army against the French for some time with much distinction.

(512 ) The Duke of Newcastle's French cook.

220 Letter 112 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(513) Strawberry Hill, Oct. 24, 1754.

You have obliged me most extremely by telling me the progress you have made in your most desirable affair.(514) I call it progress, for, notwithstanding the authority you have for supposing there may be a compromise, I cannot believe that the Duke of Newcastle would have affirmed the contrary so directly, if he had known of it. Mr. Brudenel very likely has been promised my Lord Lincoln's interest, and then supposed he should have the Duke's. However, that is not your affair; if any body has reason to apprehend a breach of promise, it is poor Mr. Brudenel. He can never come into compet.i.tion with you; and without saying any thing to reflect on him, I don't know where you can ever have a compet.i.tor, and not have the world on your side. Though the tenure is precarious, I cannot help liking the situation for you. Any thing that sets you in new lights, must be for your advantage. You are naturally indolent and humble, and are content with being perfect in whatever you happen to be. It is not flattering you to Say, nor can you deny it, with all your modesty, that you have always made yourself' master of whatever you have attempted, and have never made yourself master of any thing without shining extremely in it. If the King lives, you will have his favour; if he lives it all, the Prince must have a greater establishment, and then you will have the King's partiality to countenance your being removed to some distinguished place about the Prince: if the King should fail, your situation in his family, and your age, naturally recommend you to an equal place in the new household. I am the more desirous of seeing you at court, because, when I consider the improbability of our being in a situation to make war, I am earnest to have you have other opportunities of being one of the first men in this country, besides being a general. Don't think all I say on this subject compliment. I can have no view in flattering you; and You have a still better reason for believing me sincere, which is, that you know well that I thought the same of you, and professed the same to you, before I was of an age to have either views or flattery; indeed, I believe you know me enough to be sure that I am as void of both now as when I was fourteen, and that I am so little apt to court any body, that if you heard me say the same to any body but yourself, you would easily think that I spoke what I thought.

George Montagu and his brother are here, and have kept me from meeting you in town: we go on Sat.u.r.day to the Vine. I fear there is too much truth in what you have heard of your old mistress.(515) When husband, wife, lover, and friend tell every thing, can there but be a perpetual fracas? My dear Harry, how lucky you was in what you escaped, and in what you have got! People do sometimes avoid, not always, what is most improper for them; but they do not afterwards always meet with what they most deserve. But how lucky you are in every thing!

and how ungrateful a man to Providence if you are not thankful for so many blessings as it has given you! I won't preach, though the dreadful history which I have just heard of poor Lord Drumlanrig(516) is enough to send one to La Trappe. My compliments to all yours, and Adieu!

(513) Now first printed.

(514) His being appointed groom of the bedchamber to the King, George the Second.-E.

(515) Caroline Fitzroy, Countess of Harrington.-E.

(516) Only son of Charles third Duke of Queensberry, who was shot by the accidental discharge of his pistol on his journey from Scotland to London, in company with his parents and newly- married wife, a daughter of the Earl of Hopetoun. Lady Mary Wortley thus alludes to this calamity in a letter to her daughter:--"The d.u.c.h.ess of Queensberry's misfortune would move compa.s.sion in the hardest heart; yet, all circ.u.mstances coolly considered, I think the young lady deserves most to be pitied, being left in the terrible situation of a young and, I suppose, rich widowhood; which is walking blindfold upon stilts amidst precipices, though perhaps as little sensible of her danger, as a child of a quarter old would be in the paws of a monkey leaping on the tiles of a house."-E.

221 Letter 113 To Richard Bentley, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, Nov. 3, 1754.

I have finished all my parties, and am drawing towards a conclusion here: the Parliament meets in ten days: the House, I hear, will be extremely full--curiosity drawing as many to town as party used to do. The minister(517) in the house of Lords is a new sight in these days.

Mr. Chute and I have been at Mr. Barret's(518) at Belhouse; I never saw a place for which one did not wish, so totally void of faults. What he has done is in Gothic, and very true, though not up to the perfection of the committee. The hall is pretty; the great dining room hung with good family pictures; among which is his ancestor, the Lord Dacre who was hanged.(519) I remember when Mr. Barret was first initiated in the College of Arms by the present Dean of Exeter(520) at Cambridge, he was overjoyed at the first ancestor he put up, who was one of the murderers of Thomas Becket. The chimney-pieces, except one little miscarriage into total Ionic (he could not resist statuary and Siena marble), are all of a good King James the First Gothic. I saw the heronry so fatal to Po Yang, and told him that I was persuaded they were descended from Becket's a.s.sa.s.sin, and I hoped from my Lord Dacre too. He carried us to see the famous plantations and buildings of the last Lord Petre. They are the Brobdignag of the bad taste. The Unfinished house is execrable, ma.s.sive, and split through and through: it stands on the brow of a hill, rather to seek for a prospect than to see one, and turns its back upon an outrageous avenue which is closed with a screen of tall trees, because he would not be at the expense of beautifying the black front Of his house. The clumps are gigantic, and very ill placed.

George Montagu and the Colonel have at last been here, and have screamed with approbation through the whole Cu-gamut. Indeed, the library is delightful. They went to the Vine, and approved as much. Do you think we wished for you? I carried down incense and ma.s.s-books, and we had most Catholic enjoyment Of the chapel. In the evenings, indeed, we did touch a card a little to please George--so much, that truly I have scarce an idea left that is not spotted with clubs, hearts, spades, and diamonds. There is a vote of the Strawberry committee for great embellishments to the chapel, of which it will not be long before you hear something. It will not be longer than the spring, I trust, before you see something of it. In the mean time, to rest your impatience, I have enclosed a scratch of mine which you are to draw out better, and try if you can give yourself a perfect idea of the place. All I can say is, that my sketch is at least more intelligible than Gray's was of Stoke, from which you made so like a picture.

Thank you much for the box of Guernsey lilies, which I have received. I have been packing up a few seeds, which have little merit but the merit they will have with you, that they come from the Vine and Strawberry. My chief employ in this part of the world, except surveying my library which has scarce any thing but the painting to finish, is planting at Mrs.

Clive's, whither I remove all my superabundancies. I have lately planted the green lane, that leads from her garden to the common: "Well," said she, "when it is done, what shall we call it?"-" Why," said I, " what would you call it but Drury Lane?" I mentioned desiring some samples of your Swiss's(521 abilities: Mr. Chute and I even propose, if he should be tolerable, and would continue reasonable, to tempt him over hither, and make him work upon your designs-upon which, you know, it is not easy to make you work. If he improves upon your hands, do you think we shall purchase the fee-simple of him for so many years, as Mr. Smith did of Ca.n.a.letti?(522) We will sell to the English. Can he paint perspectives, and cathedral-aisles, and holy glooms? I am sure you could make him paint delightful insides of the chapel at the Vine, and of the library here. I never come up the stairs without reflecting how different it is from its primitive state, when my Lady Townshend all the way she came up the stairs, cried out, "Lord G.o.d! Jesus! what a house! It is just such a house as a parson's, where the children lie at the feet of the bed!"

I cant say that to-day it puts me much in mind of another speech of my lady's, "That it would be a very pleasant place, if Mrs. Clive's face did not rise upon it and make it so hot!"

The sun and Mrs. Clive seem gone for the winter.

The West Indian war has thrown me into a new study: I read nothing but American voyages, and histories of plantations and settlements. Among all the Indian nations, I have contracted a particular intimacy with the Ontaouanoucs, a people with whom I beg you will be acquainted: they pique themselves upon speaking the purest dialect. How one should delight in the grammar and dictionary of their Crusca! My only fear is, that if any of them are taken prisoners, General Braddock is not a kind of man to have proper attentions to so polite a people; I am even apprehensive that he would d.a.m.n them, and order them to be scalped, in the very worst plantation-accent. I don't know whether you know that none of the people of that immense continent have any l.a.b.i.als: they tell you que c'est ridicule to shut the lips in order to speak. Indeed, I was as barbarous as any polite nation in the world, in supposing that there was nothing worth knowing among these charming savages. They are in particular great orators, with this little variation from British eloquence, that at the end of every important paragraph they make a present; whereas we expect to receive one. They begin all their answers with recapitulating what has been said to them; and their method for this is, the respondent gives a little stick to each of the bystanders, who is, for his share, to remember such a paragraph of the speech that is to be answered. You will wonder that I should have given the preference to the Ontaouanoucs, when there is a much more extraordinary nation to the north of Canada, who have but one leg, and p-- from behind their ear; but I own I had rather converse for any time with people who speak like Mr. Pitt, than with a nation of jugglers, who are only fit to go about the country, under the direction of Taafe and Montagu.(523) Their existence I do not doubt; they are recorded by P'ere Charlevoix, in his much admired history of New France, in which there are such outrageous legends of miracles for the propagation of the Gospel, that his fables in natural history seem strict veracity.

Adieu! You write to me as seldom as if you were in an island where the Duke of Newcastle was sole minister, parties at an end, and where every thing had done happening. Yours ever.

P. S. I have just seen in the advertis.e.m.e.nts that there are arrived two new volumes of Madame de S'evign'e's Letters.

Adieu, my American studies!--adieu, even my favourite Ontaouanoucs!

(517) The Duke of Newcastle.

(518) Afterwards Lord Dacre.

(519) Thomas ninth Lord Dacre. Going, with other young persons, one night from Herst Monceaux to steal a deer out of his neighbour, Sir Nicholas Pelham's park (a frolic not unusual in those days), a fray ensued, and one of the park-keepers received a blow that caused his death; and although Lord Dacre was not present on the spot, but in a distant part of the park, he was nevertheless tried, convicted, and executed, in 1541.

His honours became forfeited, but were restored to his son in 1562.-E.

(520) Dr. Charles Lyttelton, brother of Lord Lyttelton. He was first a barrister-at-law, but in 1712 entered into holy orders, and in 1762 was consecrated Bishop of Carlisle. He died in 1768, unmarried.-E.

(521) Mr. Muntz, a Swiss painter.

(522) Mr. Smith, the English consul at Venice, had engaged Ca.n.a.letti for a certain number of years to paint exclusively for him, at a fixed price, and sold his pictures at an advanced price to English travellers.

(523) See ant'e 93, letter 35.-E.

224 Letter 114 To Richard Bentley, Esq.

Arlington Street, November 11, 1754.

If you was dead, to be sure you would have got somebody to tell me so. If you was alive, to be sure in all this time you would have told me so yourself. It is a month to-day since I received a line from you. There was a Florentine amba.s.sador here in Oliver's reign, who with great circ.u.mspection wrote to his court, "Some say the Protector is dead, others say he is not: for my part, I believe neither one nor t'other." I quote this sage personage, to show you that I have a good precedent, in case I had a mind to continue neutral upon the point of your existence. I can't resolve to believe you dead, lest I should be forced to write to Mr. S. again to bemoan you; and on the other hand, it is convenient to me to believe you living, because I have just received the enclosed from your sister, and the money from Ely. However, if you are actually dead, be so good as to order your executor to receive the money, and to answer your sister's letter. If you are not dead, I can tell you who is, and at the same time whose death is to remain as doubtful as yours till to-morrow morning Don't be alarmed! it is only the Queen-dowager of Prussia. As excessive as the concern for her is at court, the whole royal family, out of great consideration for the mercers, lacemen, etc. agreed not to shed a tear for her till tomorrow morning, when the birthday will be over; but they are all to rise by six o'clock to-morrow morning to cry quarts. This is the sum of all the news that I learnt to-day on coming from Strawberry Hill, except that Lady Betty Waldegrave was robbed t'other night In Hyde Park, under the very noses of the lamps and the patrol. If any body is robbed at the ball at court to-night, you shall hear in my next despatch. I told you in my last that I had just got two new volumes of Madame S'evign'e's Letters; but I have been cruelly disappointed; they are two hundred letters which had been omitted in the former editions, as having little or nothing worth reading. How provoking, that they would at last let one see that she could write so many letters that were not worth reading! I will tell you the truth: as they are certainly hers, I am glad to see them, but I cannot bear that any body else should. Is not that true sentiment? How would you like to see a letter of hers, describing a wild young Irish lord, a Lord P * * * *, who has lately made one of our ingenious wagers, to ride I don't know how many thousand miles in an hour, from Paris to Fontainebleau? But admire the politesse of that nation: instead of endeavouring to lame his horse, or to break his neck, that he might lose the wager, his antagonist and the spectators showed all the attention in the world to keep the road clear, and to remove even pebbles out of his way. They heaped coals of fire upon his head with all the good breeding of the Gospel. Adieu! If my letters are short, at least my notes are long.

225 Letter 115 To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, Nov. 16, 1754.

You are over-good to me, my dear Sir, in giving yourself the trouble of telling me you was content with Strawberry Hill. I will not, however, tell you, that I am Content with your being there, till you have seen it in all its greenth and blueth.

Alas! I am sorry I cannot insist upon as much with the Colonel.

Mr. Chute, I believe, was so pleased with the tenebra in his own chapel, that he has fairly buried himself in it. I have not even had so much as a burial card from him since.

The town is as full as I believe you thought the room was at your ball at Waldershare. I hear of nothing but the parts and merit of Lord North. Nothing has happened yet, but sure so many English people cannot be a.s.sembled long without committing something extraordinary.

I have seen and conversed with our old friend Cope; I find him grown very old; I fear he finds me so too; at least as old as I ever intend to be. I find him very grave too, which I believe he does not find me.

Solomon and Hesther, as my Lady Townshend calls Mr. Pitt and Lady Hester Grenville, espouse one another to-day.(524) I know nothing more but a new fashion which my Lady Hervey has brought from Paris. It is a tin funnel covered with green ribbon, and holds water, which the ladies wear to keep their bouquets fresh. I fear Lady Caroline and some others will catch frequent colds and sore throats with overturning this reservoir.

Apropos, there is a match certainly in agitation, which has very little of either Solomon or Hesther in it. You will be sorry when I tell you, that Lord Waldegrave certainly dis-Solomons himself with the Drax. Adieu! my dear Sir; I congratulate Miss Montagu on her good health, and am ever yours.

(524) On the ]6th of November, Mr. Pitt married Lady Hester Grenville, only daughter of Richard Grenville, of Wotton, Esq., and of Hester, Countess Temple.-E.

226 Letter 116 To Richard Bentley, Esq.

Arlington Street, Nov. 20, 1754.

IF this does not turn out a scolding letter I am much mistaken.

I shall give way to it with the less scruple, as I think it shall be the last of the kind; not that you will mend, but I cannot support a commerce of visions! and therefore, whenever you send me mighty cheap schemes for finding out longitudes and philosophers' stones, you will excuse me if I only smile, and don't order them to be examined by my council. For Heaven's sake, don't be a projector! Is not it provoking, that, with the best parts in the world, you should have so gentle a portion of common sense?(525) But I am clear, that you never will know the two things in the world that import you the most to know, yourself and me. Thus much by way of preface: now for the detail.

You tell me in your letter of November 3d, that the (quarry of granite might be rented at twenty pounds or twenty shillings, I don't know which, no matter, per annum. When I can't get a table out of it, is it very likely you or I should get a fortune out of it? What signifies the cheapness of the rent?