The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume II Part 48

With all his faults and arbitrary behaviour, one must worship his spirit and eloquence: where one esteems but a single royalist, one need not fear being too partial. When I visited his tomb in the church (which is remarkably neat and pretty, and enriched with monuments) I was provoked to find a little mural cabinet, with his figure three feet high kneeling.

Instead of a stern bust (and his head would furnish a n.o.bler than Bernini's Brutus) one is peevish to see a plaything that might have been bought at Chenevix's. There is a tender inscription to the second Lord Strafford's wife, written by himself; but his genius was fitter to coo over his wife's memory than to sacrifice to his father's.

Well! you have had enough of magnificence; you shall repose in a desert. Old Wortley Montagu lives on the very spot where the dragon of Wantley did, only I believe the latter was much better lodged: you never saw such a wretched hovel; lean, unpainted, and half its nakedness barely shaded with harateen stretched till it cracks. Here the miser h.o.a.rds health and money, his only two objects: he has chronicles in behalf of the air, and battens on tokay, his single indulgence, as he has heard it is particularly salutary. But the savageness of the scene would charm your Alpine taste - it is tumbled with fragments of mountains, that look ready laid for building the world. One scrambles over a huge terrace, on which mountain ashes and various trees spring out of the very rocks; and at the brow is the don, but not s.p.a.cious enough for such an inmate. However, I am persuaded it furnished Pope with this line, so exactly it answers to the picture:

"On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes."

I wanted to ask Pope if he had not visited Lady Mary Wortley here during their intimacy, but could one put that question to Avidien himself? There remains an ancient odd inscription here, which has such a whimsical mixture of devotion and romanticness that I must transcribe it:-

"Preye for the soul of Sir Thomas Wortley. Knight of the body to the kings Edward IV., Richard III., Henry VII., Henry VIII., whose faults G.o.d pardon. He caused a lodge to be built on this crag in the midst of Wharncliff (the old orthography) to hear the harts bell, in the year of our Lord 1510." It was a chase, and what he meant to hear was the noise of the stags.

During my residence here I have made two little excursions and I a.s.sure you it requires resolution . the roads are insufferable: they mend them--I should call it spoil them-- -with large pieces of stone. At Pomfret I saw the remains of that memorable castle "where Rivers, Vaughan, and Gray lay shorter by the head;" and on which Gray says,

"And thou, proud boy, from Pomfret's walls shalt send A groan, and envy oft thy happy grandsire's end!"(710)

The ruins are vanishing, but well situated; there is a large demolished church and a pretty market-house. We crossed a Gothic bridge of eight arches at Ferrybridge, where there is a pretty view, and went to a large old house of Lord Huntingdon's at Ledstone, which has nothing remarkable but a lofty terrace, a whole-length portrait of his Grandfather in tapestry, and the having belonged to the great Lord Strafford.

We saw that monument of part of poor Sir John Bland's extravagance,(711) his house and garden, which he left orders to make without once looking at either plan. The house is a b.a.s.t.a.r.d- Gothic, but Of not near the extent I had heard. We lay at Leeds, a dingy large town; and through very bad black roads, (for the whole country is a colliery, or a quarry,) we went to Kirkstall Abbey, where are vast Saxon ruins, in a most picturesque situation, on the banks of a river that falls into a cascade among rich meadows, hills, and woods: it belongs to Lord Cardigan: his father pulled down a large house here '.

lest it should interfere with the family seat, Deane. We returned through Wakefield, where is a pretty Gothic chapel on a bridge,(712) erected by Edward IV., in memory of his father, who lived at Sandal castle just by, and perished in the battle here, There is scarce any thing of the castle extant, but it commanded a rich prospect.

By permission from their graces of Norfolk, who are at Tunbridge, Lord Strafford carried us to WorkSop,(713) where we pa.s.sed two days. The house is huge, and one of the magnificent works of old Bess of Hardwicke, who guarded the Queen of Scots here for some time in a wretched little bedchamber within her own lofty one: there is a tolerable little picture of Mary's needlework. The great apartment is vast and triste, the whole leanly furnished: the great gallery, of above two hundred feet, at the top of the house, is divided into a library, and into nothing. The chapel is decent. There is no prospect, and the barren face of the country is richly furred with evergreen plantations, under the direction of the late Lord Petre.

On our way we saw Kiveton, an ugly neglected seat of the Duke of Leeds, with n.o.ble apartments and several good portraits! I went to Welbeck. It is impossible to describe the bales of Cavendishes, harleys, Holleses, Veres, and Ogles: every chamber is tapestried with them; nay, and with ten thousand other fat morsels; all their histories inscribed; all their arms, crests, devices, sculptured on chimneys of various English marbles in ancient forms (and, to say truth, most of them ugly). Then such a Gothic hall, with pendent fretwork in imitation of the old, and with a chimney-piece extremely like mine in the library. Such water-colour pictures! such historic fragments! In short, such and so much of every thing I like, that my party thought they should never get me away again. There is Prior's portrait, and the column and Varelst's flower on which he wrote; and the auth.o.r.ess d.u.c.h.ess of Newcastle in a theatric habit, which she generally wore, and, consequently,, looking as mad as the present d.u.c.h.ess; and dukes of the same name, looking as foolish as the present Duke; and Lady Mary Wortley, drawn as an auth.o.r.ess, with rather better pretensions; and cabinets and gla.s.ses wainscoted with the Greendale oak, which was so large that an old steward wisely cut a way through it to make a triumphal pa.s.sage for his lord and lady on their wedding, and only killed it! But it is impossible to tell you@ half what there is. The poor woman who is just dead pa.s.sed her whole widowhood, except in doing ten thousand right and just things, in collecting and monumenting the portraits and relics of all the great families from which she descended, and which centred in her. The Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Portland are expected there to-morrow, and we saw dozens of cabinets and coffers with the seals not yet taken off What treasures to revel over! The horseman Duke's man'ege is converted into a lofty stable,. and there is still a grove or two of magnificent oaks that have escaped all these great families, though the last Lord Oxford cut down above an hundred thousand pounds' worth. The place has little pretty, distinct from all these reverend circ.u.mstances.

(707) Hatfield, the seat of the Earl of Salisbury, was exchanged by King James I. with Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury, for Theobald's, in the same county. Evelyn visited Hatfield in March 1643: "I went," he says, "to see my Lord Salisbury's palace at Hatfield, where the most considerable rarity, besides the house," (inferior to few then in England for its architecture,) " was the garden and vineyard, rarely well-watered and planted. They also showed us the picture of Secretary Cecil in mosaic work, very well done by some Italian hand."-E.

(708) built by the great Lord Burleigh, lord treasurer to Queen Elizabeth, who visited him at this place, and where several articles still remain which had belonged to her.-E.

(709) The episcopal palace of the Bishops of Lincoln.-E.

(710) "August 14, 1654.-Pa.s.sed through Pontefract; the castle, famous for many guests, both of late and ancient times, and the death of that unhappy king murdered in it (Richard II.), was now demolishing by the rebels: it stands on a mount, and makes a goodly show at a distance." Evelyn, vol. ii. p. 88.-E.

(711) Kippax Park.

(712) The chapel upon Wakefield bridge is said to have been built upon the spot where Edmund Earl of Rutland, the youngest son of Richard Duke of York, and brother of Edward IV. and Richard III. was killed by John Lord Clifford, surnamed the Butcher.-E.

(713) The magnificent structure here described by Walpole was burnt down in 1761.-E.

339 Letter 195 To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 19, 1756.

I promised you an account of your brother as soon as he should return from Bristol, but I deferred it for a week, till I could see him reposed and refreshed, and could judge more fairly. I do think him much mended; I do not say recovered.

H e looks with colour again, and has (got a little flesh, and is able to do much more than before he went. My Lord Radnor thinks he has a great appet.i.te; I did not perceive it when he dined with me. His breath is better, though sometimes troublesome, and he brought back a great cough, which, however, is much abated. I think him so much better, that I ventured to talk very freely to him upon his own state; and though I allowed him mended, I told him plainly that I was convinced his case would be irrecoverable, if he did not go abroad. At times he swears he will, if he falls back at all; at others he will not listen to it, but pleads the confusion of his affairs. I wish there is not another more insurmountable cause, the fury, who not only torments him in this world, but is hurrying him into the next. I have not been able to prevail with him to pa.s.s one day or two here with me in tranquility. I see his life at stake, I feel for him, for you, for myself'; I am desperate about it, and yet know no remedy! I can only a.s.sure you that I will not see it quietly; nor would any thing check me from going the greatest lengths with your sister, whom I think effectually, though perhaps not maliciously, a most wicked being, but that I always find it recoils upon your brother. Alas! what signifies whether she murders him from a bad heart or a bad temper?

Poor Mr. Chute, too, has been grievously ill with the gout- he is laid up at his own house, whither I am going to see him.

I feel a little satisfaction that you have an opportunity of Richcourt's insults: who thought that the King of Prussia would ever be a rod in our hands? For my part, I feel quite pleasant, for whether he demolishes the Queen, or the Queen him, can one but find a loophole to let out joy? Lord Stormont's(714) valet de chambre arrived three days ago with an account of his being within four leagues of Dresden.(715) He laughs at the King o abuses Count Bruhl(716) with so much contempt, that one reconciles to him very fast: however, I don't know what to think of his stopping in Saxony. He a.s.sures us, that the Queen has not 55,000 men, nor magazines, nor money; but why give her time to get away? As the chance upon the long run must be so much against him, and as he has three times repeated his offers of desisting if the Empress-Queen will p.a.w.n her honour (counters to which I wonder he of all Kings would trust) that she will not attack him, one must believe that he thinks himself reduced to this step; but I [email protected] see how he is reduced to involve the Russian Empress in the quarrel too. He affirms that both intended to demolish him--but I think I would not accuse both till at least I had humbled one. We are much pleased with this expedition, but at best it ensures the duration of the war--and I wish we don't attend more to that on the Continent than to that on our element, especially as we are discouraged a little on the latter. You reproach me for not telling you more of Byng- -what can I tell you, my dear child, of a poor simpleton who behaves arrogantly and ridiculously in the most calamitous of all situations? he quarrels with the admiralty and ministry every day, though he is doing all he can to defer his trial.

After he had asked for and had had granted a great number of witnesses, he demanded another large set: this has been refused him: he is under close confinement, but it will be scarce possible to try him before the Parliament meets.

The rage of addresses did not go far: at present every thing is quiet. Whatever ministerial politics there are, are in suspense. The rains are begun, and I suppose will soon disperse our camps. The Parliament does not meet till the middle of November. Admiral Martin, whom I think you knew in Italy, died here yesterday, unemployed. This is a complete abridgement of all I know, except that, since Colonel Jefferies arrived, we think still worse of the land-officers on board the fleet, as Boyd pa.s.sed from St. Philip's to the fleet easily and back again. Jefferies (strange that Lord Tyrawley should not tell him) did not know till he landed here,,what succour had been intended--he could not refrain from tears. Byng's brother did die immediately on his arrival.(717) I shall like to send you Prussian journals, but am much more intent on what relates to your brother. Adieu!

(714) British minister at Vienna.

(715) This was the King of Prussia's irruption into Saxony, which was the commencement of the terrible Seven Years'

War.-D.

(716) Prime minister to Augustus King of Poland, and Elector of Saxony.

(717) Edward Byng, youngest brother of the Admiral. He was bred up in the army. On the Admiral being brought home a prisoner, he went to visit him at Portsmouth, on the 28th of July: overcome by the fatigue of the journey, in which he had made great expedition, he was on the next morning seized with convulsions, and died.-E.

341 Letter 196 To George Montagu, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 14, 1756.

I shall certainly not bid for the chariot for you; do you estimate an old dowager's new machine but at ten pounds? You could scarce have valued herself at less! it is appraised here at fifty. There are no family pictures but such as you might buy at any sale, that is, there are three portraits without names. If you had offered ten pounds for a set of Pelhams, perhaps I should not have thought you had underpriced them.

You bid me give you some account of myself; I can in a very few words: I am quite alone; in the morning I view a new pond I am making for gold fish, and stick in a few shrubs or trees, wherever I can find a s.p.a.ce, which is very rare: in the evening I scribble a little; all this is mixed with reading; that is, I can't say I read much, but I pick up a good deal of reading. The only thing I have done that can compose a paragraph, and which I think you are Whig enough to forgive me, is, that on each side of my bed I have hung MAGNA CHARTA, and the warrant for King Charles's execution, on which I have written Major Charta; and I believe, without the latter, the former by this time would be of very little importance. You will ask where Mr. Bentley is; confined with five sick infants, who live in spite of the epidemic distemper, as if they were infantas, and in bed himself with a fever and the same sore throat, though he sends me word he mends.

The King of Prussia has sent us over a victory, which is very kind, as we are not likely to get any of our own-not even by the secret Expedition, which you apprehend, and which I believe still less than I did the invasion-perhaps indeed there may be another port on the coast of France which we hope to discover, as we did one in the last war. By degrees, and somehow or other, I believe, we shall be fully acquainted with France. I saw the German letter you mention, think it very mischievous, and very well written for the purpose.

You talk of being better than you have been for many months; pray, which months were they, and what was the matter with you? Don't send me your fancies; I shall neither pity nor comfort you. You are perfectly well, and always were ever since I knew you, which is now--I won't say how long, but within this century. Thank G.o.d you have good health, and don't call it names.

John and I are just going to Garrick's with a grove of cypresses in our hands, like the Kentish men at the Conquest.

He has built a temple to his master Shakspeare, and I am going to adorn the outside, since his modesty would not let me decorate it within, as I proposed, with these mottoes:

"Quod spiro et placeo, si placeo, tuum est.

That I spirit have and nature, That sense breathes in ev'ry feature, That I please, if please I do, Shakspeare, all I owe to you."

342 Letter 197 To George Montagu, Esq.

Twickenham, Monday.

You are desired to have business to hinder you from going to Northampton, and you are desired to have none to hinder you from coming to Twickenham. The autumn is in great beauty; my Lord Radnor's baby-houses lay eggs every day, and promise new swarms; Mrs. Chandler treads, but don't lay; and the neighbouring dowagers order their visiting coaches before sunset-can you resist such a landscape? only send me a line that I may be sure to be ready for you, for I go to London now and then to buy coals.

I believe there cannot be a word of truth in Lord Granville's going to Berlin; by the clumsiness of the thought, I should take it for ministerial wit--and so, and so.

The Twickenham Alabouches say that Legge is to marry the eldest Pelhamine infanta; he loves a minister's daughter--I shall not wonder if he intends it, but can the parents! Mr.

Conway mentioned nothing to me but of the prisoners of the last battle. and I hope it extends no farther, but I vow I don't see why it should not. Adieu!

342 Letter 198 To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 17, 1756.

Lentulus (I am going to tell you no old Roman tale; he is the King of Prussia's aide-de-camp) arrived yesterday, with ample Confirmation of the victory in Bohemia.(718) Are not you glad that we have got a victory that we can at least call Cousin?

Between six and seven thousand Austrians were killed: eight Prussian squadrons sustained the acharnement, which is said to have been extreme, of thirty-two squadrons of Austrians: the pursuit lasted from Friday noon till Monday morning; both our countrymen Brown and Keith(719) performed wonders--we seem to flourish much when transplanted to Germany--but Germany don't make good manure here! The Prussian King writes that both Brown and Piccolomini are too strongly entrenched to be attacked. His Majesty ran to this victory; not 'a la Mulwitz.(720) He affirms having found In the King of Poland's cabinet ample justification of his treatment of Saxony--should not one query whether he had not those proofs(721) in his hands antecedent to the cabinet? The Dauphiness(722) is said to have flung herself at the King of France's feet and begged his protection for her father; that he promised "qu'il le rendroit au centuple au Roi de Prusse."