The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume II Part 43

303 Letter 170 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Arlington Street, Jan. 24, 1756.

Oh sir, I shall take care how I ever ask favours of you again!

It was with great reluctance that I brought myself to ask this: you took no notice of my request; and I flattered myself that I was punished for having applied to you so much against my inclination. Just as I grew confirmed in the pride of being mortified, I hear that you have outgone my application, and in the kindest manner in the world have given the young man a pair of colours. It would have been unpleasant enough to be refused; but to obtain more than one asked is the most provoking thing in the world! I was prepared to be very grateful if you had done just what I desired; but I declare I have no thanks ready for a work of supererogation. If there ever was a spirit that went to heaven for mere grat.i.tude, which I am persuaded is a much more uncommon qualification than martyrdom, I must draw upon his h.o.a.rd of merit to acquit myself. You will at least get thus much by this charming manner of obliging me: I look upon myself as double obliged; and when it cost me so much to ask one favour, and I find myself in debt for two, I shall scarce run in tick for a third.

What adds to my vexation is, that I wrote to you but the night before last. Unless I could return your kindness with equal grace, it would be not very decent to imitate you by beginning to take no notice of it; and therefore you must away with this letter upon the back of the former.

We had yesterday some history in the House - Beckford produced an accusation in form against Admiral Knowles on his way to an impeachment. Governor Verres was a puny culprit in comparison! Jamaica indeed has not quite so many costly temples and ivory statues, etc. as Sicily had: but what Knowles could not or had not a propensity to commit in rapine and petty larceny, he has made up in tyranny. The papers are granted, and we are all going to turn jurymen. The rest of the day was spent in a kind of avoirdupois war. Your friend Sir George Lyttelton opened the budget; well enough in general, but was strangely bewildered in the figures; he stumbled over millions, and dwelt pompously upon farthings.

Pitt attacked him pretty warmly on mortgaging the sinking fund; Sir George kept up his spirit, and returned the attack on his eloquence: it was entertaining enough, but ended in high compliments; and the division was 231 to 5(;.

Your friend Lady Petersham, not to let the town quite lapse into politics, has entertained it with a new scene. She was t'other night at the play with her court; viz. Miss Ashe, Lord Barnard, M. St. Simon, and her favourite footman Richard, whom, under pretence of keeping places, she always keeps in her box the whole time to see the play at his ease. Mr.

Stanley, Colonel Vernon, and Mr. Vaughan arrived at the very end of the farce, and could find no room, but a row and a half in Lady Caroline's box. Richard denied them entrance very impertinently. Mr. Stanley took him by the hair of his head, dragged him into the pa.s.sage, and thrashed him. The heroine was outrageous--the heroes not at all so.(656) She sent Richard to Fielding for a warrant. He would not grant it--and so it ended--And so must I, for here is company. Adieu!

My letter would have been much cleverer, but George Montagu has been chattering by me the whole time, and insists on my making you his compliments.

(656) Lady Hervey, in a letter of the 23d of March, thus alludes to this story:--"This is the time of year you used to come to town. Come and hear a little what is going forward: you will be alarmed with invasions which are never intended; you will hear of ladies of quality who uphold footmen insulting gentlemen; nay, you will hear of ladies who steal not only hearts, but gold boxes."-E.

304 Letter 171 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Jan. 25, 1756.

I am troubled to think what anxiety you have undergone! yet your brother Gal. a.s.sures me that he has never missed writing one week since he began to be ill. Indeed, had I in the least foreseen that his disorder would have lasted a quarter of the time it has, I should have given you an account of it; but the distance between us is so great, that I could not endure to make you begin to be uneasy, when, in all probability, the cause would be removed before my letter reached You. This tenderness for you has deceived me: your brother, as his complaint is of the asthmatic kind, has continued all the time at Richmond. Our attendance in Parliament has been so unrelaxed, the weather has been so bad, and the roads so impracticable by astonishing and continued deluges of rain, that, as I heard from him constantly three or four times a week, and saw your brother James, who went to him every week, I went to see him but twice; and the last time, about a fortnight ago, I thought him extremely mended: he wrote me two very comfortable notes this week of his mending, and this morning Mr. Chute and I went to see him, and to scold him for not having writ oftener to you, which he protests he has done constantly. I cannot flatter you, my dear child, as much as to say I think him mended; his shortness of breath continues to be very uneasy to him, and his long confinement has wasted him a good deal. I fear his case is more consumptive than asthmatic; he begins a course of quicksilver to-morrow for the obstruction in his breast. I shall go out to him again the day after to-morrow, and pray as fervently as you yourself do, my dear Sir, for his recovery. You have not more obligations to him, nor adore him more than I do. As my tenderness and friendship is so strong for you both, you may depend on hearing from me constantly; but a declining const.i.tution, you know, will not admit of a very rapid recovery. Though he is fallen away, he looks well in the face, and his eyes are very lively: the weather is very warm, he wants no advice, and I a.s.sure YOU no solicitude for his health; no man ever was so beloved, and so deservingly! Besides Dr. Baker, the physician of Richmond, who is so much esteemed, he has consulted Dr.

Pringle, who is in the first repute, and who is strongly for the quicksilver. I enter Into these particulars, because, when one is anxious, one loves to know the most minute.

Nothing is capable of making me so happy, as being able soon to send you a better account.

Our politics wear a serener face than they have done of late: you will have heard that our nephew of Prussia-I was going to say, has asked blessing--begging our dignity's pardon, I fear he has given blessing! In short, he guarantees the empire with us from all foreign troops. It is pleasant to think, that at least we shall be to fight for ourselves. Fight we must, France says: but when she said so last, she knew nothing of our cordiality with the court of Berlin. Monsieur Rouill'e very lately wrote to Mr. Fox, by way of Monsieur Bonac in Holland, to say his master ordered the accompanying M'emoire to be transmitted to his Britannic Majesty in person; it is addressed to n.o.body, but after professing great disposition to peace, and complaining in harsh terms of our brigandages and pirateries, it says, that if we will restore their ships, goods, etc. they shall then be ready to treat. We have returned a squab answer, retorting the infraction of treaties, professing a desire of peace too, but declare we cannot determine upon rest.i.tution comme pr'eliminaire. If we do not, the M'emoire says, they shall look upon it comme declaration de guerre la plus authentique. Yet, in my own opinion, they will not declare it; especially since the King of Prussia has been Russianed out of their alliance. They will probably attempt some stroke; I think not succeed in it, and then lie by for an opportunity when they shall be stronger. They can only go to Holland, attempt these islands, or some great coup in America.(657) Holland they may swallow when they will; yet, why should they, when we don't attempt to hinder them?

and it would be madness if -we did. For coming hither, our fleet is superior say, but equal: our army and preparations greater than ever--if an invasion were still easy, should we be yet to conquer, when we have been so long much more exposed? In America we arc much stronger than they, and have still more chances of preventing their performing any action of consequence.

The opposition is nibbling, but is not popular, nor have Yet got hold of any clue of consequence. There is not the vivacity that broke forth before the holidays.

I condole with you for Madame Antinori,(658) and Madame Grifoni; but I know, my dear child, how much too seriously your mind will be occupied about your dear brother, to think that romantic grief will any longer disquiet you. Pray Heaven! I may send you better and better news. Adieu!

P. S. I forgot to thank you for your history of the war with Lucca in your last but one.

(657) "A formal declaration of war from France," writes Lord Chesterfield to Mr. Dayrolles on the 23d, "seems to be the natural consequence of Rouill'e's memorial. I am not so fond of war as I find many people are. Mark the end on 't. Our treaty lately concluded with Russia is a fortunate event, and secures the peace of the empire; and is it possible that France can invade the Low Countries, which are the dominions of the Empress Queen, only because Admiral Boscawen has taken two of their ships in America? I see but two places where France can annoy us; in America, by slipping over in single ships a considerable number of troops, and next by keeping us in a state of fear and expense at home, with the threats and appearances of an intended invasion."-E.

(658) A Florentine lady, whom Sir Horace admired, and who was just dead: she was sister of Madame Grifoni.

306 Letter 172 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Feb. 5, 1756.

I think I can give you a little better account of your brother, who is so dear to both of us; I put myself on a foot with you, for nothing can love him better than I do. I have been a week at Strawberry Hill. in order to watch and see him every day. The Duke's physician, Dr. Pringle, who now attends him, has certainly relieved him much: his cough is in a manner gone, his fever much abated, his breath better. His strength is not yet increased; and his st.i.tches, which they impute to wind, are not relieved. But both his physicians swear that his lungs are not touched. His worst symptom is what they cannot, but I must and will remove: in short, his wife is killing him, I can scarce say slowly. Her temper is beyond imagination, her avarice monstrous, her madness about what she calls cleanliness, to a degree of distraction; if I had not first, and then made your brother Ned interpose in form, she would once or twice a week have the very closet washed in which your brother sleeps after dinner. It is certainly very impertinent to interfere in so delicate a case, but your brother's life makes me blind to every consideration: in short, we have made Dr. Pringle declare that the moment the weather is a little warmer, and he can be moved, change of air is absolutely necessary, and I am to take him to Strawberry Hill, where you may imagine he will neither be teased nor neglected: the physicians are strong for his going abroad, but I find that it will be a very difficult point to carry even with himself. His affairs are so extensive, that as yet he will not hear of leaving them. Then the exclusion of correspondence by the war with France would be another great objection with him to going thither; and to send him to Naples by sea, if we could persuade him would hardly be advisable in the heat of such hostilities. I think by this account you will judge perfectly of your brother's situation: you may depend upon it, it is not desperate, and yet it is what makes me very unhappy. Dr. Pringle says, that in his life he never knew a person for whom so many people were concerned. I go to him again to-morrow.

The war is reckoned inevitable, nay begun, though France does not proceed to a formal declaration, but contents herself with Monsieur Rouill'e's conditional declaration. All intercourse is stopped. We, who two months ago were in terrors about a war on the continent, are now more frightened about having it at home. Hessians and Dutch are said to be, and, I believe, are sent for. I have known the time when we were much less prepared and much less alarmed. Lord Ravensworth moved yesterday to send par pr'eference for Hanoverians, but n.o.body seconded him. The opposition cavil, but are not strong enough to be said to oppose. This is exactly our situation.

I must beg, my dear sir, that you will do a little for my sake, what I know and hear you have already done from natural goodness. Mr. d.i.c.k, the consul at Leghorn, is particularly attached to my old and great friend Lady Harry Beauclerc, whom you have often heard me mention; she was Miss Lovelace: it will please me vastly if you will throw in a few civilities more at my request.

Adieu! Pray for your brother: I need not say talk him over and over with Dr. Cocchl, and hope the best of the war.

307 Letter 173 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Arlington Street, Feb. 12, 1756.

I will not write to my Lady Ailesbury to-night, nor pretend to answer the prettiest letter in the world, when I am out of spirits. I am very unhappy about poor Mr. Mann, who I fear is in a deep consumption: the doctors do not give him over, and the symptoms are certainly a little mended this week; but you know how fallacious that distemper is, and how unwise it would be to trust to it! As he is at Richmond, I pa.s.s a great deal of my time out of town to be near him, and so may have missed some news; but I will tell you all I know.

The House of Commons is dwindled into a very dialogue between Pitt and Fox-one even begins to want Admiral Vernon again for variety. Sometimes it is a little piquant; in which though Pitt has attacked, Fox has generally had the better. These three or four last days we have been solely upon the Pennsylvanian regiment, bickering, and but once dividing, 165 to 57. We are got but past the first reading yet. We want the French to put a little vivacity into us. The Duke of Newcastle has expected them every hour: he was terribly alarmed t'other night; on his table he found a mysterious card with only these words, "Charles is very well, and is expected in England every day." It was plainly some secret friend that advertised him of the pretender's approaching arrival. He called up all the servants, ransacked the whole house to know who had been in his dressing-room:-at last it came out to be an answer from the d.u.c.h.ess of Queensberry to the d.u.c.h.ess of Newcastle about Lord Charles Douglas. Don't it put you in mind of my Lord Treasurer Portland in Clarendon, "Remember Caesar"!

The French have promised letters of n.o.blesse to whoever fits out even a little privateer. I could not help a melancholy smile when my Lady Ailesbury talked of coming over soon. I fear major-general you will scarce be permitted to return to your plough at Park-place, when we grudge every man that is left at the plough. Between the French and the earthquakes, you have no notion how good we are grown; n.o.body makes a suit of clothes now but of sackcloth turned up with ashes. The fast was kept so devoutly, that d.i.c.k Edgec.u.mbe, finding a very lean hazard at White's, said with a sigh, "Lord, how the times are degenerated! Formerly a fast would have brought every body hither; now it keeps every body away!" A few nights before, two men walking up the Strand, one said to t'other, "Look how red the sky is! Well, thank G.o.d! there is to be no masquerade!"

My Lord Ashburnham(659) does not keep a fast; he is going to marry one of the plump Crawleys:--they call him the n.o.ble lord upon the woolsack.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Norfolk has opened her new house: all the earth was there last Tuesday. You would have thought there had been a comet, every body was gaping in the air and treading on one another's toes. In short, you never saw such a scene of magnificence and taste. The tapestry, the embroidered bed, the illumination, the gla.s.ses, the lightness and novelty of the ornaments, and the ceilings, are delightful. She gives three Tuesdays, would you be at one! Somebody asked my Lord Rockingham afterwards at White's, what was there'! He said, , "Oh! there was all the company afraid of the d.u.c.h.ess, and the Duke afraid of all the company."--It was not a bad picture.

My Lady Ailesbury flatters me extremely about my "World," but it has brought me into a peck of troubles. In short, the good-natured town have been pleased to lend me a meaning, and call my Lord Bute Sir Eustace. I need not say how ill the story tallies to what they apply it; but I do vow to you, that so far from once entering into my imagination, my only apprehension was that I should be suspected of flattery for the compliment to the Princess in a former part. It is the more cruel, because you know it is just the thing in the world on which one must not defend one's self. If I might, I can prove that the paper was writ last Easter, long before this history was ever mentioned, and flung by, because I did not like it: I mentioned it one night to my Lady Hervey, which was the occasion of its being printed.

I beg you will tell my Lady Ailesbury, that I am sorry she could not discover any wit in Mrs. Hussey's making a sept-leva. I know I never was so vain of any wit in my life as winning a thousand leva and two five hundred levas.

You would laugh if you saw in the midst of what trumpery I am writing. Two porters have just brought home my purchases from Mrs. Kennon the midwife's sale: Brobdignag combs, old broken pots, pans, and pipkins, a lantern of sc.r.a.ped oyster-sh.e.l.ls, scimitars, Turkish pipes, Chinese baskets, etc. etc. My servants think my head is turned: I hope not: it is all to be called the personal estate and moveables of my great-great-grandmother, and to be reposited at Strawberry. I believe you think my letter as strange a miscellany as my purchases.

P. S. I forgot, that I was outbid for Oliver Cromwell's nightcap.

(659) John, second Earl of Ashburnham. On the 28th of June he married Elizabeth, daughter and coheiress of Ambrose Crawley, Esq.-E.

309 Letter 174 To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Feb. 23, 1756.

I can tell you with as much truth as pleasure that your brother a.s.suredly mends, and that his physician, Dr. Pringle, who is the Duke's has told his Royal Highness, who expresses great concern, that he now will live. He goes out to take the air every day, that is not very bad: Mr. Chute and I went to see him yesterday, and saw a real and satisfactory alteration. I don't say this to flatter you; on the contrary, I must bid you, my dear child, not to be too sanguine, for Dr. Cocchi will tell you that there is nothing more fallacious than a consumptive case; don't mistake me, it is not a consumption, though it is a consumptive disposition. His spirits are evidently better.

You will have heard, before you receive this, that the King of France and Madame Pompadour are gone into devotion. Some say, that D'Argenson, finding how much her inclination for peace with us fell in with the Monarch's humanity, (and winch indeed is the only rational account one can give of their inactivity,) employed the Cardinal de la Rochefoucault and the Confessor to threaten the most Christian King with an earthquake if he did not communicate at Easter; and that his Majesty accordingly made over his mistress to his wife, by appointing the former dame du palais: others, who refine more, pretend that Madame Pompadour, perceiving how much the King's disposition veered to devotion, artfully took the turn of humouring it, desired to be only his soul's concubine, and actually sent to ask pardon of her husband, and to offer to return to him, from which he begged to be excused-the point in dispute is whether she has or has not left off rouge. In our present hostile state we cannot arrive at any certainty on this important question; though our fate seems to depend on it!

We have had nothing in Parliament but most tedious and long debates on a West Indian regiment, to be partly composed of Swiss and Germans settled in Pennsylvania, with some Dutch officers. The opposition neither increase in numbers or eloquence; the want of the former seems to have damped the fire of the latter. the reigning fashion is expectation of an invasion; I can't say I am fashionable; nor do I expect the earthquake, though they say it is landed at Dover.

The most curious history that I have to tell you, is a malicious, pretty successful, and yet most clumsy Plot executed by the papists, in which number you will not be surprised at my including some Protestant divines, against the famous Bower,(660) author of the History of the Popes. Rumours were spread of his being discovered in correspondence with the Jesuits; some even said the correspondence was treasonable, and that he was actually in the hands of a messenger. I went to Sir George Lyttelton, his great friend, to learn the truth; he told me the story: that Sir Harry Bedingfield, whom I know for a most bigoted Papist in Norfolk, pretended to have six letters from Bower (signed A. B.) in his hands, addressed to one Father Sheldon, a Jesuit, under another name, in which A. B. affected great contrition and desires of reconciliation to that church, lamenting his living in fornication with a woman, by whom he had a child, and from whom he had got fifteen hundred pounds, which he had put into Sheldon's hands, and which he affirmed he must have again if he broke off the commerce, for that the woman insisted on having either him or her money; and offering all manner of submission to holy church, and to be sent wherever she should please; for non mea voluntas sed tua fiat:- -the last letter grieved at not being able to get his money, and to be forced to continue in sin, and concluded with telling the Jesuit that something would happen soon which would put an end to their correspondence-this is supposed to allude to his history. The similitude of hands is very great-but you know how little that can weigh! I know that Mr. Conway and my Lady Ailesbury write so alike, that I never receive a letter from either of them that I am not forced to look at the name to see from which it comes; the only difference is that she writes legibly, and he does not. These letters were shown about privately, and with injunctions of secrecy: it seems Hooke, the Roman historian, a convert to Popery, and who governs my Lord Bath and that family, is deep in this plot. At last it got to the ears of Dr. Birch, a zealous but simple Than, and of Millar the bookseller, angry at Bower for not being his printer--they trumpeted the story all over the town. Lord Pultney was One who told it me, and added, "a Popish gentleman and an English clergyman are upon the scent;" he told me Sir H. Bedingfield's name, but Would not the clergyman's. I replied, then your lordship must give me leave to say, as I don't know his name, that I suppose our doctor is as angry as Sir Harry at Bower for having written against the church of Rome. Sir G. Lyttelton went to Sir Harry, and demanded to see the letters, and asked for copies, which were promised. He soon observed twenty falsehoods and inconsistencies, particulary the mention of a patent for a place, which Sir George obtained for him, but never thought of asking till a year and a half after the date of this letter; to say nothing of the inconsistence of his taking a place as a Protestant, at the same time he was offering to go whithersoever the Jesuits would send him; and the still more glaring improbability of his risking himself again under their power! Sir George desired the woman might be produced--Sir Harry shuffled, and at last said he believed it was a lie of Bower. When he was beaten out of every point, he said, he Would put it on this single fact, "Ask Mr. Bower if he was not reconciled to the church of Rome in the year '44." The whole foundation proves to be this: Bower, who is a very child in worldly matters, was weak enough, for good interest, to put fifteen hundred pounds into the hands of one Brown, a Jesuit here in London, and from that correspondence they have forged his hand; and finding the minds of men alarmed and foolish about the invasion and the earthquake, they thought the train would take like wildfire. I told Bower, that though this trusting a Jesuit did great honour to his simplicity, it Certainly did none to his judgment. Sir George begged I would advise them what to do-they were afraid to enter into a controversy, which Hooke might manage. I told him at once that their best way would be to advertise a great reward for discovery of the forgery, and to communicate their intention to Sir Harry bedington. Sir George was pleased with the thought-and indeed it succeeded beyond expectation. Sir Harry sent word that he approved the investigation of truth, be the persons concerned of what profession they would; that he was obliged to go out of town next day for his health, but hoped at his return Sir George would give him leave to cultivate an acquaintance which this little affair had renewed. Sir George answered with great propriety and spirit, that he should be very proud of his acquaintance, but must beg leave to differ with him in calling a little affair what tended to murder a man's character, but he was glad to see that it was the best way that Rome had of answering Mr. Bower's book. You see, Sir Harry is forced to let the forgery rest on himself, rather than put a chancellor of the exchequer upon the scent after priests!

He has even hesitated Upon giving Bower copies of the letters.

Since I began my letter, we hear that France is determined to try a numerous invasion in several places in England and Ireland, coute qui coute, and knowing how difficult it is. We are well-prepared and strong; they have given us time. If it were easy to invade us, we should not have waited for an attack till the year 1756. I hope to give you a good account both of England and your brother. Adieu!

(660) Bower was a man of very bad character, and it is now generally believed that he intended to cheat the Jesuits out of a sum of money.-D.