The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume III Part 40

(433) In April 1763, Lord Bute surprised both his friends and his opponents by a sudden resignation. The motive of this resolution is still a mystery. Some have said, that having concluded the peace, his patriotic views and ambition were satisfied; others that he resigned in disgust at the falsehood and ingrat.i.tude of public men; others that he was driven from his station by libels and unpopularity. None of these reasons seem consistent with a desire which Lord Bute appears to have entertained, to return to office with a new administration. A clamour was long kept up against Lord Bute's secret and irresponsible influence; but it is now generally admitted that no such influence existed, and that Lord Bute soon ceased to have any weight in public affairs.-C.

(434) Mr. Walpole was so vehement in his party feelings, that all his characters of political enemies must be read with great distrust.-C.

(435) Lord Sandwich was an able minister, and so important a member of the administration to which Mr. Walpole was now opposed, that we must read all that he says of this lord with some "grains of allowance."-C.

(436) On the 19th of January, when the ministers were about to proceed to vote Wilkes in contempt, and expel him, a motion was made by Wilkes's friends to postpone the consideration of the affair till next day; this was lost by 239 to 102.-C.

(437) He means that the opposition had adopted Pratt's view instead of Mr. Yorke's.-C.

(438) This is not true; the real cause of his resignation is stated ant'e, p. 251, letter 181; he certainly disagreed from the Duke of Newcastle and others of his friends, who made the matter of privilege a party question instead of treating it as a legal one, as Mr. Yorke did.

(439) Philip Lord Royston, afterwards second Earl of Hardwicke, elder brother of Mr. Charles Yorke.-E.

(440) George, first Marquis of Townshend, at this time a major-general in the army. In the divisions on branches of the Wilkes question, we sometimes find General Townshend a teller on one side, and Mr. Townshend on the other.-C.

(441) The Hereditary Prince, who came to England to marry the Princess Augusta, eldest sister of George III. He landed at Harwich on the 12th of January, and arrived the same evening at Somerset-house, where he was lodged. Lady Chatham, in a letter to Mr. Pitt, relates the following anecdotes Mrs. Boscawen tells me, that while the Prince was at Harwich, the people almost pulled down the house in which he was, in order to see him. A substantial Quaker insisted so strongly upon seeing him, that he was allowed to come into the room: he pulled off his hat to him, and said, 'n.o.ble friend, give me thy hand!' which was given, and he kissed it; 'although I do not fight myself, I love a brave man that will fight: thou art a valiant Prince, and art to be married to a lovely Princess: love her, make her a good husband, and the Lord bless you both!'" See Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p.

272.-E.

(442) The Prince's chief secretary.-E.

(443) Granville, second Earl Gower, afterwards first Marquis: groom of the stole.-E.

(444) William Charles Henry, Prince of Orange, who, in 1734, married Anne, eldest daughter of George II.-E.

(445) Alicia Ashley, wife of Charles, third Earl of Tankerville, lady of the bedchamber to Princess Augusta. Nothing but Mr.

Walpole's facetious ingenuity could have tortured the Prince's little attention to Lady Tankerville into a desire to insult the King.-C.

(446) Mr. Wilkes had thought it prudent to retire to Paris, under circ.u.mstances which certainly rendered it unlikely that the King's amba.s.sador should pay him any kind of civil attention.-C.

(447) Again Mr. Walpole's partiality blinds him. "The Duellist"

is surely far from being the finest of Churchill's works. Mr.

Walpole's own feelings are strongly marked by the glee with which he sees hemlock administered to his old friend Lord Holland, and by being charmed with the abuse of Bishop Warburton.-C.

(448) Mr. Walpole, by one of those happy expressions which make the chief charm of his writings, characterizes the stately formality of this n.o.ble lord. His house at Witham is close to the great road, a little beyond the town of Witham. Her late Majesty, Queen Charlotte, slept there on her way to London, in 1761.-C.

(449) Mr. Walpole probably understood his lordship to mean that a Serene Highness was not sufficiently important to require his attendance at Witham.-C.

(450) Wilkes was convicted, in the Court of King's Bench, on the 21st of January, the day before this letter was begun, of having written the Essay on Woman.-C.

(451) Mr. Kidgel, a clergyman, had obtained from a printer a copy of the Essay on Woman, which he said he felt it his duty to denounce. His own personal character turned out to be far from respectable.-C.

(452) The opposition club was in Albemarle-street, and the ministerial at the Cocoa-tree; and the papers of the day had several political letters addressed to and from these clubs.-C.

(453) The oldest field-marshal in the army.

(454) Major-general A,Court had a little before resigned, or rather been dismissed, for his parliamentary opposition, from the command of the second regiment of foot-guards.-C.

(455) John, afterwards seventh Earl of galloway.

(456) Joseph Damer, first Lord Milton.

Letter 189 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Arlington Street, Jan. 31, 1764. (page 277)

Dear Sir, Several weeks ago I begged you to tell me how to convey to you a print of Strawberry Hill, and another of Archbishop Hutton. I must now repeat the same request for two more volumes of my Anecdotes of Painting, which are on the point of being published.

I hope no illness prevented my hearing from you.

To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Dear Sir, I am impatient for your ma.n.u.script, but have not yet received it.

You may depend on my keeping it to myself, and returning it safely.

I do not know that history of my father, which you mention, by the name of Musgrave. If it is the critical history of his administration, I have it; if not, I shall be obliged to you for it.

Your kindness to your tenants is like yourself, and most humane.

I am glad Your prize rewards you, and wish your fortune had been as good as mine, who with a single ticket in this last lottery got five hundred pounds.

I have nothing new, that is, nothing old to tell you. You care not about the present world, and are the only real philosopher, I know.

I this winter met with a very large lot of English heads, chiefly of the reign of James I., which very nearly perfects my collection. There were several which I had in vain hunted for these ten years. I have bought too, some very scarce, but more modern ones out of Sir Charles Cotterell's collection. Except a few of Faithorne's, there are scarce any now that I much wish for.

With my Anecdotes I packed up for you the head of Archbishop Hutton, and a new little print of Strawberry. If the volumes, as I understand by your letter, stay in town to be bound, I hope your bookseller will take care not to lose those trifles.

Letter 190 To Sir David Dalrymple.(457) Arlington Street, Jan. 31, 1764. (page 278)

I am very sorry, Sir, that your obliging corrections of my Anecdotes of Painting have come so late, that the first volume is actually reprinted. The second shall be the better for them. I am now publishing the third volume, and another of Engravers. I wish you would be so kind as to tell me how I may convey them speedily to you: you waited too long the last time for things that have little merit but novelty. These volumes are of still less worth than the preceding; our latter painters not compensating by excellence for the charms that antiquity has bestowed on their antecessors.

I wish I had known in time what heads of Nanteuil you want.

There has been a very valuable sale of Sir Clement Cotterell's prints, the impressions most beautiful, and of which Nanteuil made the capital part. I do not know who particularly collects his works now, but I have ordered my bookseller Bathoe,(458) who is much versed in those things, to inquire; and if I hear of any purchaser, Sir, I will let you know.

I have not bought the Anecdotes of Polite literature,(459) suspecting them for a bookseller's compilation, and confirmed in it by never hearing them mentioned. Our booksellers here at London disgrace literature, by the trash they bespeak to be written, and at the same time prevent every thing else from being sold. They are little more or less than upholsters, who sell sets or bodies of arts and sciences for furniture; and the purchasers, for I am sure they are not readers, buy only in that view.(460) I never thought there was much merit in reading: but yet it is too good a thing to be put upon no better footing than In damask and mahogany.

Whenever I can be of the least use to your studies or collections, you know, Sir, that you may command me freely.

(457) Now first collected.

(458) This very intelligent bookseller, who lived near Exeter 'Change, in the Strand, died in 1768.-E.

(459) This was a very amusing and judicious selection, in five small volumes, very neatly printed.-E.

(460 "I once said to Dr. Johnson, 'I am sorry, Sir, you did not get more for your Dictionary.' His answer was, 'I am sorry too; but it was very well: the booksellers are generous liberal-minded men.' He, upon all occasions, did ample justice to their character in this respect. He considered them as the patrons of literature and, indeed, although they have eventually been considerable gainers by his Dictionary, it is to them that we owe its having been undertaken and carried out at the risk of great expense for they were not absolutely sure of being indemnified."

Boswell's Johnson, vol. ii. p. 58.-E.